■ trace and feel shapes. Children trace around a block with pencil, then color it in if desired. With a little practice, they can superimpose different shapes on one paper, coloring in some of the sections. Blocks can also be used as items in a "mystery bag." Two or three familiar shapes are placed in a bag and children take turns reaching in, feeling a block, and identifying its shape.
Plane figures can be explored through active interaction. Colored tape is laid on the floor in geometric shapes large enough for children to walk on. Ask the children to jump, walk, crawl, and so on across specific shapes. They might count the number of children who can fit in one triangle or the number of steps it takes to walk the perimeter of a square.
Kindergarten and primary children continue to learn best from working with manipulatives and may find the illustrations in math textbooks confusing. Some materials that are appropriate are tiles, pattern blocks, attribute blocks, geoblocks, geometric solids, colored cubes, and tangrams. Computer games in which geometric shapes appear from different angles help children overcome their misunderstandings of book illustrations, which may show a shape from only one or two viewpoints. Some appropriate activities are building structures with various types of blocks to enhance spatial visualization. Folding and cutting activities such as origami or snowflake making, exploring the indoor and outdoor environments to identify shapes and angles made by people and nature, reading maps, making graphs, playing Tic-Tac-Toe, Battleship, and other games that use grid systems [6, pp. 458- 459].
All day long there are opportunities for children to increase their awareness of mathematics in the world around them. Mathematical phenomena may not always be as obvious as those of language, however. Thus, the teacher must take extra care to include mathematical learning whenever natural learning situations arise. Often this means recognizing opportunities to incorporate mathematics into other areas of the curriculum.
CONCLUSION
Mathematical learning for young children is much more than the traditional counting and arithmetic skills; it includes a variety of mathematical concepts (classification, ordering, counting, addition and subtraction, measuring, geometry).
Children may begin some simple work with geometry in primary school. Main goal of beginning geometry is to teach children to recognize the most simple shapes—the square, the circle, the triangle, and the rectangle. Teaching such basic terms simplifies classroom explanations and lays the foundation for future work with geometry.
By age six, children often have stable yet limiting ideas about shapes. It’s possible to broaden child's understanding by pointing out a variety of examples — squares that are many sizes and triangles that are "long," "skinny," "fat," and turned in many directions.
Thus teachers must keep in mind that children learn geometry most effectively through active engagement with toys, blocks, puzzles, manipulatives, drawings, computers and teachers!
It’s possible to develop deeper thinking about shapes not just through hands-on activities and discussions, picture books but through playing. In primary school playing is used as the main method of teaching.
Huge experience of using games and playing exercises during the children’s studying of mathematics (and geometry) is accumulated in practice of working of preschool organizations.
REFERENCES
1. Douglas Clements.Ready for Geometry! From an early age, children make sense of the shapes they see in the world around them // International Journal of Mathematical Education. Science and Technology. – 2006. - № 2, pp. 5-6.
2. Ellen Booth Church. Exploring simple shapes sets the stage for creative thinking // International Journal of Mathematical Education. Science and Technology. – 2007. - № 11, pp. 12-13.
3. Ellen Booth Church. Boxes are the raw materials of creative thinking! // International Journal of Mathematical Education. Science and Technology. – 2006. - № 10, pp. 9-10
4. Ellen Booth Church. Color, Shape, and Size. Use snacks and mealtime to teach big ideas with taste and ease // International Journal of Mathematical Education. Science and Technology. – 2007. - № 8, pp. 2-5.
5. Julie Sarama, Douglas H. Clements. Some activities teachers can try to support math learning// International Journal of Mathematical Education. Science and Technology. – 2005. - № 1, pp. 10-11.
6. Suzanne Lowell Krogh. Educating Young Children. Infancy to Grade Three. New York.: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994. – 605 p.
7. The World Book of Math Power. Volume 1. Learning Math. – Chicago.: World Book, Inc., 1995. – 420 p.