Is it weird that I hated high school geometry but LOVE teaching lines and angles in geometry to my fourth grade students?! Weird or not, math is one of my favorite subjects to teach, and I always aim to find the most engaging activities and ideas to make learning fun. And lines and angles are concepts needed for upper-level math, so let’s make sure our students really grasp them.
Before diving into ways to make your lines and angles unit epic, I want to mention that student engagement starts with getting them to buy into their learning. We need to build relationships with them and create a safe classroom environment where they can let their guard down. Then, they’ll be able to focus on the task or lesson at hand. This works best for me through Morning Meetings (or Class Meetings).
Learn more about utilizing class meetings with your students with my free Morning Meeting Starter Kit! This will give you everything you need to start or boost your meetings. Click here to download! Alright, now it’s time to get into all things lines and angles.
Boost Your Lines and Angles Lesson Plan With These Student-Approved Ideas
This is probably the first time your students have learned about lines and angles, and there’s quite a bit of new vocabulary for them to learn. Here are some ways to introduce these concepts, connect to your students’ schema, and help them understand as you teach lines and angles.
Choose a Lines and Angles Video to Visually Introduce the Concept
My students know that when we start learning something new, there’s usually a video involved. More often than not, these videos include a song of some sort! My students love singing along, and they’ll usually learn the lyrics by the end of the video and keep singing the song throughout the day. And I love that! So here is a roundup of my favorite lines and angles videos.
Let’s start with Numberock. I am OBSESSED with all the videos Numberock puts out, and so are my students! They combine math concepts with catchy, original songs and animated videos to keep students’ attention. Click here for their video on parallel, perpendicular, and intersecting lines.
How can you not get that song stuck in your head?! Hahahaha! And if you need one for angles? They’ve got you covered there too. GoNoodle also has an awesome video on lines and angles from Blazer Fresh. Students love this one because there are actions to go along with it so they can participate while they watch.
You can also use videos to reinforce your lessons or send them to the students’ grown-ups as additional support at home. Here’s a great video for learning about lines.
Use Movement and Actions for a Hands-On Way to Learn
I can’t remember who I learned this from first, but I highly recommend practicing your new lines and angles vocabulary with actions. As I teach each new part, I have students stand up and do an action for it. We build on our collection as we go.
For a point, we make a fist and say “Point.” For a ray, we put our arms out to either side of us and make one hand a fist (point) and the other straight like an arrow and say, “Ray.” For line, we make both hands straight like arrows on either side and for line segment, you guessed it, both hands are fists like points. We’ll make our arms into intersecting lines, parallel lines, and perpendicular lines as well.
When it comes to angles, we make angles with our arms too. Acute, right, obtuse, straight, all made with our arms. I’ll use this as a classroom management attention-getter throughout the day. Sometimes I’ll just randomly say, “Obtuse!” And they freeze and make an obtuse angle and listen. We also play Simon Says and other games to practice the vocabulary and become proficient with our new terms!
Get Your Students Involved in Making Your Lines and Angles Anchor Charts
Anchor Charts are my JAM! I love making them with my students to really “anchor” their thinking and give them a reference point when things get a bit confusing. But, even with student involvement, my students would lose their focus during our lessons. That was until I started making them their own versions for their math notebooks!
I made lines and angles anchor charts for them to create with me as I taught the lessons with spaces for them to fill in and practice. Everyone worked on their anchor charts as we worked on the big one at the front of the classroom. I’m telling you – my student engagement was through the roof!
And when the pandemic hit and forced everyone into distance learning, I created digital versions with moveable pieces to keep everyone learning and give them a reference when they needed it. You can find the digital and printable charts for this unit here – they’re together in one place, so you have what you need, no matter how you may be teaching.
Our Favorite 4th Grade Lines and Angles Activities
Real Life Application
I’m all about exposing our students to real-life examples of what they’re learning. Here are some ways you can do this with lines and angles in geometry. Go outside and notice lines and angles around the school. Research pictures with lines and angles in them. Talk about architecture and how architects and builders need to be specific when creating designs and building things. That way everything turns out how it should.
I also like to look at maps and show them what parallel, intersecting, and perpendicular lines look like and how to tell them apart. Sometimes I’ll project a picture of a map or really anything up on the board and ask students to share what lines and angles they notice. It starts excellent discussions of how these things make a difference in our lives.
Better than a Lines and Angles Geometry Worksheet
Looking for a lines and angles practice worksheet? I’ve got one better for you. What about a set of lines and angles interactive notebook activities? These are SO much more fun, hands-on, and will help your students discriminate between the different types of lines and angles.
Students cut and paste the lines in the right spots in these two line activities. The first gives students the chance to practice naming lines and lines, rays, and line segments. Students sort the parallel, perpendicular, and intersecting lines in the second activity by type.
Then, we have an angle scavenger hunt, where they have to find each type of angle and write it down (I like to have them write how they know it’s that kind of angle too). And then, we have an angle measurement activity. It’s super important for students to know how to measure angles with a protractor.
Practice How to Measure Angles in Geometry
Speaking of measuring angles, this is a new concept for most kids. It can be a bit confusing, especially with the two sets of numbers. One of my anchor charts teaches them how to read angles in geometry and measure them so they can use it as they practice, but to get proficient with this, it’s important to practice!
I believe Runde’s Room was the first to suggest this activity of putting lots of washi tape going in all different directions on a table and having students measure and label the angles either with a dry erase marker or a sticky note and pencil. My students love this activity! I also like to give my students free reign. They take their protractors around the classroom to measure any angle they see! We talk about deciding if they think it’s an acute, right, or obtuse angle before they measure to make sure their measurements line up with what kind of angle it is.
Activities for Students to Show Mastery of this Concept
I usually use this lines and angles activity as our culminating project once all of my students understand lines and angles. We write or type our names in all capitals and then use different colors to point out lines and angles in our letters. Henry may point out that the vertical lines in H are parallel, and the horizontal line is a line segment that makes perpendicular lines (or right angles). Katie may highlight the acute and obtuse angles in letter K. It’s fun to see what the students can find and what they gravitate towards (lines or angles).
You could also make a Classroom City, where each student is in charge of a section of the city and has to create roads, buildings, etc., out of lines and angles. Another way to do this with a bit more uniformity is to print out or draw a simple black & white drawing of a city poster size, so there are enough pieces of paper for each student to have one. Then, they must use the part you gave them to create part of the city and name the streets, etc. It’s a great opportunity for mastery of lines, rays, and angles 4th grade students will enjoy. (Mine always love coloring and drawing!)
More Resources for Teaching Lines and Angles in Geometry
Lines and Angles Anchor Charts and Activities
Khan Academy Grade 4: Geometry
Lines and Angles Activities with Twizzlers and Skittles
10 Test Prep Games to Engage Your Upper Elementary Class
I hope these activities and ideas make it easy to make your lines and angles lesson plan! It’s been fun sharing what I did as a fourth grade teacher in my classroom. Don’t forget to check out the interactive notebook activities, projects, and anchor charts to make planning and teaching that much easier. If you need more help planning your lines and angles in geometry unit, comment below, & I’ll support you!
