Mathematics · 1st Year

Active learning ideas

Investigating 3-D Shapes (Solids)

Turn your pupils into data detectives with this introduction to surveys and charts.

• NCCA Curriculum Specifications
• NCCA: PSMC - Shape and space - 3-D shapes

• 15–30 min
• Pairs → Whole Class
• 3 activities

Activity 01

• Mystery Object
• 30 min · Small Groups

Our Favourite Fruit Survey

Pupils work in small groups to decide on a single question to find out the class's favourite fruit from a choice of four (e.g., apple, banana, orange, pear). They then go around the class, ask each pupil the same question, and record the answers using tally marks on a prepared sheet.

Identify a 3-D shape that can roll.

Facilitation Tip

Model the process of creating tally marks clearly, especially the 'gate' for the fifth mark.

What to look for

Observe pupils during a paired survey activity. Note their ability to ask the question consistently, listen to the answer, and accurately record a tally mark for each person.

• Understand
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Self-Management
• Social Awareness

Activity 02

• Mystery Object
• 15 min · Whole Class

Yes/No Corners

The teacher asks a series of questions with a 'yes' or 'no' answer (e.g., 'Do you have a brother?'). Pupils move to one corner of the room for 'yes' and another for 'no', allowing them to physically represent the data and easily compare the group sizes.

Explain the difference between a cube and a cuboid.

Facilitation Tip

Use this activity to explicitly discuss why a question like 'What is your favourite colour?' wouldn't work for this game.

What to look for

Provide pupils with a simple picture containing different objects (e.g., 5 cars, 3 balls, 6 dolls). Ask them to create a tally chart to show how many of each object there are.

• Understand
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Self-Management
• Social Awareness

Activity 03

• Mystery Object
• 20 min · Whole Class

Human Bar Chart

After a simple survey (e.g., 'What month is your birthday in?'), pupils line up in columns according to their answer. This creates a living bar chart, helping them to visualise which categories have more or less.

Compare a sphere and a cylinder.

Facilitation Tip

Take a picture of the human bar chart to refer back to when introducing paper-based block graphs.

What to look for

After an activity, ask pupils to do a 'fist-to-five' rating (0 fingers for 'I don't understand' to 5 fingers for 'I can teach someone else') on their confidence in conducting their own survey.

• Understand
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Self-Management
• Social Awareness

A few notes on teaching this unit

Begin with concrete, physical sorting activities and human graphs to make the concept of data tangible. Model the entire survey process with the whole class first, from agreeing on a question to tallying the results. Emphasise the 'one person, one vote' rule to ensure fairness and accuracy in their data collection.

By the end of this topic, your pupils will be able to devise a simple question, survey their classmates, and show their findings using tally marks.

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Watch Out for These Misconceptions

• It is okay to ask different people slightly different questions or offer different choices when conducting a survey.

  To get a fair result that truly shows what the whole class thinks, we must ask everyone the exact same question with the exact same choices. Otherwise, we are not comparing the same things.

• Tally marks are just random lines; the number of lines doesn't matter.

  Each tally mark stands for one person or one thing. We must make one mark for each answer we get, so our chart is accurate and shows the true number.

• You only need to ask your friends to find out what is most popular in the class.

  Your friends are a small part of the class. To find out what the whole class prefers, you must ask every single person, not just the people you know best.

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Methods used in this brief

• Mystery Object