Today the class and I had a discussion about one of my "pet-peeves" and I thought it important to share with you.
There is not a shape called a diamond.
Looking at the above shapes, students will immediately identify the blue one as a square. They see the four equal, straight sides. They also see a shape oriented in a typical way. When students look at the red shape, they call it a diamond. The problem with this is that they are the same shape; only one has been rotated 45 degrees.
When looking at shapes, all children need to learn that it is not the orientation of the shape that defines its name. Students should look at the number of sides a shape has, the size of its angles, and whether or not its sides are parallel. That is what gives a shape its name.
While I am mentioning parallel lines, I'd also like to point out the following shapes. They are parallelograms,
not diamonds-regardless of how they are rotated.
