"It's just a triangle, like a normal triangle" he muttered, thoroughly defeated, as I pointed to yet another shape that, to him, still looks like a triangle.
Repetition and familiarity is the only way forward so we'll rinse and repeat in the next few days but here is our system for those pesky names :
Equilateral ... Equal easily spotted because the sides and angles are all equal.
Scalene ... Scatty Scalene - so muddled up that every side is a different length.
Isosceles ... iSausages - Okay I was desperate. Here is my artist impression of why isosceles is iSausages, based on the flimsy premise that if you ate two sausages for tea they're highly likely to be the same length (but the size of your plate might vary).
Also :
Right angled triangle ... Right Angle the clue's in the name - if it's got a right angle, this is your triangle. Can also be a scalene or isosceles, just to confuse any shape-name-matching activities. To prove this, I had to show W that you could lay your sausages in an L shape.
For reinforcement we're going to make pizza over the weekend and cut the slices into various triangle types.
Sausages and pizza. Not a great week for nutrition but a good one for maths.
