DIME Puzzle Packs

TakTiles

DIME shape recognition Geoff Giles
Shape recognition is an important part of early education and the TakTiles project sets out to provide some interesting and stimulating material for children to use. Eight different curvy shapes made out of colourful Plastazote can fit together in many ways and the activity centres around the task of filling a variety of different outlines with two or more of them. There are teacher's notes presented both in booklet form with comments and also as an A2 chart. This chart can be used to introduce the materials to a class or to a group. However, the main thrust of the work is for individual activity and discovery. The pack contains enough material for a group of five children

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PP3 TakTiles £12.70 (+ VAT)

DIME Puzzle Packs

DIME Geoff Giles
Young children love to take apart these colourful 'jig-saw' type shapes and then to reassemble them. Each of them fits together so satisfyingly. Some of the joins are symmetrical and some are not and they provide valuable practice in 'seeing' shapes and recognising how and where the piece in question fits.

PP1 Interlocking Squares £2.00(+ VAT)
PP2 Shape Jigsaw £3.20 (+ VAT)
PP9A Hexagon Jigsaw £2.20 (+ VAT)
PP9B Triangle Jigsaw £2.20 (+ VAT)
PP10 Bang £3.20 (+ VAT)
Set of 5 puzzles £11.80 (+ VAT)

Line Symmetry Puzzles

DIME Geoff Giles
The concepts of line or mirror symmetry are introduced in a practical non-verbal way by means of what appear to be simple puzzles. The aim is to manipulate just two or three Plastazote shapes at a time so that their total outline has mirror symmetry. With so few pieces to place this might seem to be a trivial problem. However, this is undoubtedly not the case and when the answer is found, then it is a simple matter to check that it does indeed have mirror symmetry by using one of the card mirrors provided. There are two separate packs, one based on squares and one on triangles and each pack contains ten puzzles. Each puzzle is presented in a bag with its workcard and a card mirror, so that it is ready to use. There are also teacher's notes, hints and suggestions for using the material.

PP5A Line Symmetry Puzzles A
(Based on squares) £5.40 (+ VAT)
PP5B Line Symmetry Puzzles B
(Based on triangles) £5.40 (+ VAT)

Spatial Reasoning

DIME Projects Geoff Giles
This pack contains six separate and colourful puzzles, carefully graded for difficulty. Each of them provides young children with an interesting practical task requiring shape recognition and logical reasoning. At its simplest, the task is to fit the shapes within a frame, ignoring their colours. Then, once this is accomplished the next step is to achieve the same result but with the pieces arranged so that no two of the same colour touch along an edge. Made of Plastazote with its lovely tactile quality and complete with Teacher's notes and suggestions.

PP7 Spatial Reasoning Puzzles £11.50(+ VAT)