TEACHING AND LEARNING PLANE GEOMETRY IN PRIMARY SCHOOL: ACQUISITION OF A FIRST GEOMETRICAL THINKING

This paper presents an implantation of a teaching whose aim is to give Primary School students (8-10 years old) a first geometrical thinking about basic geometric objects and relations between objects. We first carry out an analysis of knowledge presented in the Primary School Official Curriculum. Then we present the working hypothesis upon which our“engineering ” is based: changing simultaneously the size of the working space and the instrumentation is a factor of improvement for the transition from sensible space to geometric space and for the comprehension of geometric objects and their relationships. We further present an example of a sequence named “Square ” designed and implemented in 2001-2002. Teaching and learning plane geometry in French Primary School pose many problems. Content of curriculum is not very developed and structured in the presentation of geometric objects and relations between these objects. Work in different spaces and sets of instruments are mentioned without any reason for their use. Different types o