Naming Polygons

A PowerPoint on the naming conventions behind Polygons. A lot of people know up to 12-sided polygons (dodecagon) but with this PowerPoint you can show the naming conventions and be able to name any Polygon up to a 999-sided polygon!
…it’s an enneahectaenneacontakaienneagon if you were wondering. A great literacy-based task, which can be used as an end-of-term activity.

The way I’ve used this PowerPoint is to show how the roots of words can reveal information about the word (same from words like percentage).

Then I get them to name the more basic polygons, starting from what they know and stretching it with the basic rule (just add -gon) at the end as a prefix.

Next is the rule for 21-99 which is where you add the word kai as along with a tens digit and ones digit words. This lets them begin to use these new basic rules to form a new polygon.

I show a picture of a hectagon (100 sides) next to get them to have a look and discuss what they notice about it. The main conclusion is that it looks like a circle at this point. So we can say that the more sides we add, the more round a polygon will look.

Finally, we introduce the rule for up to 999-sides. You now have to add the hundreds unit as well. This is why I enjoy this lesson, it is all about applying new rules to be able to form these words.