The first activity teaches children about parallel and intersecting line using their fingers and arms. Have your all of your students put both arms in the air. Their upright arms represent two parallel lines, lines of equal distance apart that do not cross at any point. Next, have the students cross their arms or fingers together at any angle. Now, they are forming two intersecting lines, lines that cross each other at exactly one point. Finally, have each student form a cross shape with their arms or fingers. They have just formed two perpendicular lines, lines that cross each other to form four 90-degree or right angles.
The next activity is a very simple line identification game. Ask your students or children to find at least four examples of parallel and intersecting lines in the classroom, their homes or the neighborhoods. Let them bring pictures they take with cameras, find in magazines and print from websites. The pictures should clearly show parallel or intersecting straight lines, such as those you would see on roadways, in bicycle wheel spokes, on brick walls or in other places. The children should show the pictures to the class and point out the parallel and intersecting lines in each one.
In the third activity, your students will identify and match together parallel lines drawn on a whiteboard. You must draw five or more sets of parallel lines overlapping each other so that the students cannot immediately tell which line is parallel with which. Label each line with a different letter or number. Ask the students to come up to the board in pairs. One student will pick a random letter. The other student must find which line is parallel with the line the first student chose. Make sure that you know which line matches with which. This game can also be transformed into an individual activity by drawing the lines on a sheet of paper and making copies.
For the last activity, your students will be identifying lines that intersect at different angles. This is an individual rather than a group activity. On one sheet of plain, white paper, use a ruler to draw a straight, horizontal line. Then, using a protractor, draw at least 10 more lines intersecting the horizontal line at 10 different angles. Label each of the intersecting lines with a different letter or number. In another area of the paper, write the different degree measurements of each line with a space next to each one. Make enough copies of this worksheet for all students. Students must match the lines to their corresponding degree measurements.