A geometry chat is a 10-15 minute mini-lesson focused on one task that provided students opportunities to talk about shapes and to explore their properties. The geometry chat instructional strategy is analogous to number talks. Number talks get students talking about numbers and their relationships. Similarly, geometry chats are designed for students to discuss what they notice about properties of shapes and their relationships. Number talks encourage students to break apart numbers and put them back together, while geometry chats provide opportunities for students to decompose and recompose shapes. Geometry chat tasks are designed to allow a wide range of perspectives so students at different levels of development in their geometric thinking can participate in personally meaningful ways.

Students are presented with four shapes and asked: Which one is not like the others? The shapes are created purposefully so that each one of the four shapes does not share a property with the other three. Students discuss the shape they chose and the reasons for their choices.

• Examples of Which one is not like the others? tasks.

• Planning template for Which one is not like the others? tasks.

• Resources for Which one is not like the others?.

In a Guess My Shape geometry chat, the class is presented with a collection of shapes, one of which has been secretly selected by the teacher. Students ask yes/no questions which the teacher strategically answers in order for the students to identify the secret shape. The goal is to create a supportive classroom environment for students to identify and talk about formal geometric properties. To engage the whole class, the teacher solicits several questions from the students before providing any answers.

• Examples of Guess My Shape tasks.

• Planning template for Guess My Shape tasks.

• Shape Collection

• Resources for Guess My Shape.

In a Quick Image (Wheatley 2007) mini-lesson, the teacher briefly displays an image composed of several different shapes. Students draw the image and the teacher facilitates a class discussion of the shapes and properties students noticed in the image. This sequence repeats for a series of related images. The goal for a Quick Image is for students to construct a mental representation of the image, analyse the components of the image, and then describe their drawing using appropriate geometric terminology.

• Examples of Quick Image tasks.

• Resources for Quick Image tasks.