The past month, we've been learning all about 3-D shapes and my kids are having a blast! I even had one bring a book to me this morning and say, "There are 3-D solid shapes in this book!" {Insert happy teacher dance!} Here's a little recap of what we've done!
I like to introduce solid shapes the same way every year...with a snack of course!

I give the kids one of each and we talk about the attributes of each and chart before we eat them. For some reason, this really makes those attributes stick and they can immediately tell me how many faces and vertices each shape has.

After this introduction, we focus on a shape a day and work on sorting real life examples. We do this whole group and then on individual cut and paste activity pages.

Then, we review all the shapes together. We practice sorting with my shape sorting cards. When we sort, I make the kids tell me why the shape belongs in a certain group {for example, it has 1 vertice and 1 face shaped like a circle, so it's a cone}.

Probably my favorite thing we do is to make our 3-D shape people. My kids LOVED the 2-D shape people we made in the fall, and they were just as crazy about these! I didn't have time for the kids to make one of each of the shapes we learn, so I made copies of 5 of each shape and laid it out for the kids to pick the shape they wanted.

{I wish I could afford to make everything with cardstock!!}

Now, usually I pre-cut crafts for my kids, but on shape people, I always make them cut so they are working on and noticing the attributes of the shape.

The kids make the shape people by attaching eyes, arms, legs, hands, and feet to the body of their shape. I love these because the shapes are used over and over for the parts of the shape guy!

To finish, the kids write how many faces and vertices the shape has and attach it to their shape.

These little guys are always the perfect culmination of our 3-D shape unit!

If you'd like to check out these activities, you can click the picture below {and hurry while they're on sale today in the big TpT sale!}

You can also get this pack bundled with my 2-D shape pack if you need both!

I'm off to Tampa today to visit a Kagan model school...I am so excited!!

Read more »

Vickie

Oh my word...we have listened to this song so much, I go home singing it everyday!! It has definitely made an impact on my kiddos while we've been learning 3D shapes this week.

We listen to it everyday!! Another activity we did that helped introduce the shapes was to eat an example of each shape. We love to eat in our class {ha!}, and eating the shapes really helped the kids remember the names.

After we ate the shapes, we made a little anchor chart to help us remember the attributes of each shape.

After our introduction, we've been focusing on one shape a day. First, we sort shapes as a class to find our focus shape.

Then, the kids complete an independent sorting page as well as a quick little activity page to identify the focus shape.

Our shape guys also made a return and the kids were so excited. Actually cutting the shape for all the parts of the shape person really helps those attributes stick with the kids!

The rest of the week we'll focus on cylinders and spheres. If you're interested in any of the shape activities, you can get them in my 3D shape pack on TpT.

I'm off to whip a quick door decoration and bake our cake for the 100th day tomorrow!

Read more »

Vickie

We've been busy this week learning all about 3D shapes and my kids are doing really well with remembering the names and attributes of each shape!
We started by listening and singing this song...my kids are OBSESSED with this Harry Kindegarten songs! They beg me to sing this everyday!

Then, we used some manipulatives to create an anchor chart about the shapes.

We sorted examples of real world 3D shapes.

You can get this page here as a freebie :)

We used our manipulatives again to determine which shapes will roll, slide, and stack.

You can get this page here for free also :)

I think the best part of our week was when we got to eat 3D shapes...this really helped the kids learn the names of the shapes!

I hope you are able to use the freebies and in case you need an extra activity for President's Day {or money}, I have updated my Flip That Penny graphing activity to include all the coins. You can get it here as a freebie on TpT.
We have an inservice day tomorrow, so I'm hoping to get lots done. Happy almost Friday!

Read more »

Vickie