Math for Elementary Teachers II 1512

Angles and Triangles

What exactly is a triangle? I wonder that myself. I also often confuse the different types of triangles and angles that the include, or don't include for that matter. Hopefully this blog will help you use the tools, or tricks to memorize the different types of triangles and angles.
To begin, a triangle is just that, it has three (tri) sides and three angles, and those angles always equal 180 degrees.

There are three different names given to triangles that tell how many sides (angles) are equal. There can be 3, 2 or even no equal sides or angles in a triangle. These three options give us the three types of triangles possible; equilateral, isosceles and scalene.

The way I remember Equilateral Triangle is that is has three equal sides; Equal = Equilateral (sounds almost the same to me). The three angles of an "equal" triangle are always 60 degrees each.






Next is the Isosceles Triangle, I have no fun way to remember that this triangle only has two equal sides and two equal angles. 

Scalene Triangle has no equal sides and no equal angles. The way I remember this is to me scalene reminds me of scaling, like scaling a mountain. When I think of that I think that no mountain has an exact equal with equal sides. Kind of silly but                                            it works for me.

There are also three different names for different types of angles within a triangle. Those are acute triangle, right triangle and obtuse triangle.

An Acute Triangle all angels are less than 90 degrees.
When I think of acute triangles I think of how cute things
are when they are little, which reminds me that all angles are
little, or less than 90 degrees.

 Right Triangle has a right angle of 90 degrees, the way I remember this is a right angle is 90 degrees so a right triangle has at least one of these.

An Obtuse Triangle has an angle of more than 90 degrees. The strange way I remember this is that Obtuse reminds me of odd, and for some reason when I think of angles I think of the usual 90 degree angle and anything larger than that is odd, or obtuse.


Work Sited: http://www.mathsisfun.com/triangle.html