Geoboard Activities

Activity 1: Make a Geoboard

Your children are most likely using them in school. Yet, you might not have a clue what they are! Don’t worry, my first year teaching in the classroom I had to have someone explain what these awesome tools were.

Geoboards are a tool to help young children understand geometry as they develop spatial sense and mathematical thinking. There are endless possibilities for exploring and experiencing geometric concepts on the geoboard.

Have we sold you on how awesome Geoboards are yet? If you don’t have one, you can make your own!

What You’ll Need:

• Square board (without rough edges would be best)
• Rubber bands or ponytail bands
• Push pins or small nails

Press in the pins equally placed on the board. See the picture above for more details. We made this one to show you we could do it. Don’t want to make one? That’s okay. You can buy one on Amazon.

Activity 2: Geoboard Pictures

What You’ll Need:
• Geoboard
• Rubberbands

Have your child create a picture on the geoboard using rubber bands. Get started by providing open-ended or explicit suggestions. Your choice, but it is remarkable the difference in what kids create based on the questions you ask.

Explicit Questions
• Make an airplane
• Make a frog
• Make a house

Open-Ended Questions:
• Make something that flies
• Make something that jumps
• Make a place where someone could live

Activity 3: Geoboard Constellation Glossary

Do you have a child interested in space or the night sky? Use your geoboard for creative astronomy fun.

Go to the night sky activity in the Stella and Sam app (from “Backyard at Twilight”), or do a google search for some constellations. Copy down the simple outline of the constellation on paper. An older child can copy the drawing to dot paper. Now you can duplicate the drawing onto your geoboard. With your device’s camera, you can have your child take pictures of their constellation and create a picture glossary.