One Fish Two Fish

Yes, I am a fan of Dr. Seuss.  Not only do I love his nonsensical language, but I also love the messages that he presents: a person's a person no matter how small, maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store, and from here to there funny things are everywhere.  The last one comes from "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish".  My point?  A couple weeks ago during class, I realized that this book has a lot to do with sorting!  It points out the differences in fish and other 'animals', thus describing how to sort them.  Ok, maybe the book isn't all about sorting, but I wanted to introduce today's topic with something fun!

Today's topic: Venn diagrams.  Venn diagrams are merely a tool used to sort information; however, they can get tricky every now and then.  So let's go through the different parts together:

Ok. So this whole Venn Diagram is called the Universe.  Everything, all of the information, make up the Universe.  Circle A holds all information that applies to "A", for example: all circles.  Circle B holds all information that applies to "B", for example: all large shapes.  And the middle, called the intersection, holds all information for which both "A" and "B" applies.

Easy enough right? So lets do one together:

In this Universe, we have two triangles, two squares, two rectangles, and two circles.  For each of the shapes, one is large and one is small.  So, for this Venn Diagram, we are going to sort these into two categories: (A) circles and (B) large shapes.  So what will this look like?? I'll show you!

The small circle is in (A).  The large circle is in the intersection because it is both a circle and a large shape.  The large triangle, square, and rectangle are in (B).  The smaller triangle, square, and rectangle are not sorted, because they do not fit into any of the categories.  However, because they are part of the universe, they cannot simply be deleted; they must remain outside of the circles.

So, sound easy enough?  Well, it gets a little bit more complicated.  By this I mean shading!  So as not to confuse you, I have found a video that is very explanatory!

Great video, is it not?! Well for extra help and background information on Venn Diagrams, click here.  To get some extra practice with sorting different shapes, click here.