Geometry and Spatial Sense, Grades 4 to 6 - EduGains

Location and Movement
Spatial sense is the intuitive awareness of one’s surroundings and the objects in them.
Geometry helps us represent and describe objects and their interrelationships in space….
Spatial sense is necessary for understanding and appreciating the many geometric aspects
of our world. Insights and intuitions about the characteristics of two-dimensional shapes
and three-dimensional figures, the interrelationships of shapes, and the effects of changes
to shapes are important aspects of spatial sense. Students develop their spatial sense by
visualizing, drawing, and comparing shapes and figures in various positions.
OVERVIEW
(Ontario Ministry of Education, 2005, p. 9)
Spatial reasoning plays an important role in interpreting and understanding the world
around us. As students develop spatial reasoning abilities, they can appreciate the
important role geometry plays in art, science, and their everyday world. Spatial reasoning
includes two important spatial abilities: spatial orientation and spatial visualization. Spatial
orientation is the ability to locate and describe objects in space, and to carry out and
describe transformations of objects. Spatial visualization is the ability to imagine, describe,
and understand movements of two- and three-dimensional objects in space. These skills
play an important role in representing and solving problems in all areas of mathematics
and in real-world situations.
The following are key points that can be made about location and movement in the
junior grades:
• A coordinate grid system can be used to describe the position of a plane shape or solid
object.
• Different transformations can be used to describe the movement of a shape.
USING A COORDINATE GRID SYSTEM TO DESCRIBE POSITION
In the primary grades, students learn to use positional language and simple grid systems to
describe the position of objects and their movement. In the junior grades, students develop
flexibility in spatial reasoning by exploring a variety of coordinate systems.
The Big Ideas in Geometry and Spatial Sense 1