Expanding:Circles
Hints and Tips
Your child has encountered circles previously when looking at 2D shapes but they have their own unique language and mathematical properties so deserve to be considered in their own right.
Your child should now draw circles with a set of compasses. This will need practise but, using these, s/he will be able to construct circles of specific dimensions, a necessary skill later.
Essential Prior Knowledge
Activity
Before moving on, it is important to refresh your child’s memory of the circles vocabulary.
We have used colour here so that you can see the circles with their corresponding centre point on the circumference of the original circle (black)
Draw a circle and mark off six evenly spaced points on the circumference.
Using each point as a centre, and the same radius, as the first circle, construct six more circles. (Each will pass through the centre of the core circle.)
Your child can add as many or few new circles to this pattern, as he/she wants to.
He/she can make similar marks on the circumference of the outer circles to build up a complex pattern.
This can then be coloured in using the patterns created by the overlapping circles.
This pattern may remind you of a popular toy called Spirograph Set lots more fun with circles for your child.