Students will use Cabri Jr. to learn about the properties of quadrilaterals as well as learn about the relationships between quadrilaterals.

By middle school, students have some understanding of the properties of specific quadrilaterals. Review each of the seven quadrilaterals with students and ideas about the properties of each. This can be done by giving students cut-outs of several different quadrilaterals and asking them to sort them into groups. Students can then explain why they sorted them into the groups they did. Beginning with a sorting activity, will help to get a better understanding of what students' misconceptions may be.

Based on students reponses from the sorting activity, choose two quadrilaterals on which to focus. For example, parallelograms and rectangles. Give students the Parallelograms and Rectangles handout. Students should open the associated Cabri Quadrilateral Maker files and use them to try to construct the given shapes. Students should begin to understand that any shape that is a parallelogram can be constructed by the paralellogram file. For example, they should see that the parallelogram can construct parallelograms, rectangles, rhombuses, and squares. Each activity helps students to see these relationships.

Review student answers: