Parallelograms/Trapezoids in 3rd?

[carriew]

Hello all, quick question!

Looking through the standards, “parallel” lines aren’t specifically introduced until the 4th grade, but in the geometry progressions for 3rd it says, “For example, students can form larger, superordinate, categories,
such as the class of all shapes with four sides, or quadrilaterals,
and recognize that it includes other categories, such as squares,
rectangles, rhombuses, parallelograms, and trapezoids.”

Also, in the examples of classifying quadrilaterals parallelograms are used again in the diagram.

Do 3rd graders need to know parallel lines so they can therefore identify and describe a parallelogram vs. other quadrilaterals? Or should they stick with squares, rectangles, and rhombuses as it states in the standards? Or is this all up to the curriculum writer?

Thanks for any input!
Cheers!
Carrie

[Cathy Kessel]

Students are not expected to know parallel lines in grade 3. They need only be able to draw shapes and analyze them as it says in the paragraph below the one from which you quote. That analysis doesn’t necessarily involve saying that opposite sides determine parallel lines although students’ descriptions might involve properties that we’d recognize as properties of a pair of parallel lines, e.g., same distance apart when measured by dropping a perpendicular (language we would not expect until later grades).

[carriew]

Thanks Cathy, I think I was getting confused since parallelograms were used in the classification example as well.

Thanks for the insight!

Carrie

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