Square Dot Tessellations: (Shape and Space Collection S.)

This scheme works well on square dot grids and simple variations. The book starts with elementary patterns and then moves through to more complex shapes. All the tessellations are started, which the user then has to complete. This is excellent material for improving shape recognition skills and improves pupils ability to extract information from diagrams.

About the Author :
I taught Mathematics for 36 years, the latter 25 years as Head of Department at a Comprehensive School. I worked across the ability range teaching both the brightest and weakest pupils. It was during my time at my last school that the material presented in this series of books was developed. I had as a teacher never been happy with the quality of spatial work contained in text books, and so I sought to build up a scheme of work. The material started with exercises in reflection, rotation, and enlargement. The availability of square dot and isometric paper brought in work on tessellations and symmetry. To extend the range of symmetry work unique grids were made up and tried out. All through the process of building up this scheme of work the reaction of the pupils to the material was the driving force. If it did not work it was either modified or thrown out. Packs of coloured felt tip pens became available for use and the classroom walls became full of brightly coloured designs. Each class had its own section of wall and these classes kept a keen eye on what each other were doing. All year nine classes had this material integrated into their maths course, the interesting thing being that the ability to do the material did not correlate to mathematical ability. Low ability pupils were able to do complex designs and gained great personal esteem out of their success. I was able to build on this success and improve other areas of their mathematics. A lot of material went home to be done by their request, not mine. I was convinced that the pupils performance improved by using this material. Their concentration improved, their measuring skills improved as did their attitude to the subject. I have come to believe that there are three equally important areas to develop, Numeracy, Literacy and Spatial. I think we fail to give the latter enough importance in education. Some colleagues have used this material with lower aged pupils with great success. I used year nines as they were the lowest age group in my school, but the earlier pupils are exposed to this type of work the better their performance should be. At the end of the school year all the pictures came down. In September we started again with new pens, a new year group and bare walls to fill. Alan Wiltshire.