Features of studying the properties of geometric shapes in primary school

Abstract

The topic and content of the article are determined by the modern requirements for the quality of Ukrainian educational materials, in particular, textbooks of the New Ukrainian School. The analysis of modern primary school mathematics textbooks has shown a violation of the principle of systematic and consistent presentation of geometric material.
The author emphasizes the main tasks of studying geometric material in primary school – the formation of clear ideas about the primary, simplest geometric objects. At the same time, the system of exercises and tasks of geometric content and methods of working with them should contribute to the development of spatial representations in primary school students, the ability to observe, compare, abstract, draw conclusions, analyze. Particular attention is focused on developing students’ practical skills in performing measuring actions, constructing geometric shapes with and without drawing tools, and forming the first initial ideas about the accuracy of construction and measurement. Such actions are propaedeutic for further understanding of the properties of geometric shapes. All this requires clear systematic work, strict adherence to didactic principles and requirements. The article analyzes approaches to the presentation of geometric material in textbooks and methods of teaching it in primary school in the publications of Ukrainian and foreign scholars. The main initial positions in the system of studying geometric material in the course of primary school mathematics are highlighted, in particular, in terms of strengthening the role of the properties of geometric shapes in the realization of the content of geometric concepts and their interconnection. The shortcomings in the methodology of teaching geometric concepts, which are associated with the unsystematic content of primary school textbooks and the lack of educational tasks for the formation of spatial and planar representations in students, are indicated. It is emphasized that teaching is carried out in a sequence corresponding to the methodological development of science (from “geometry of measurements” to “geometry of shape”), while the development of geometric operations in younger students goes in the opposite direction, that is, the first geometric operations of students are qualitative, not quantitative. Not enough attention is paid to the purely geometric content of figures (construction, decomposition into parts) as a basis for studying geometric material in the following levels of education.
The article suggests ways to correct the methodological shortcomings that exist in the content of the presentation of geometric material in modern textbooks of the New Ukrainian School.