Thursday, February 21, 2008

Shapes of Things - All Around Us

For the past few weeks, our class has been studying the form and function of 2-D and 3-D shapes. Mrs. Johnson has been teaching the children about the shapes that surround our every day life. The children have learned about cylinders, cubes, and spheres as well as hexagons, pentagons, and rhombus'. Much to their amazement, they are now noticing and commenting on all of the shapes that they now see. After reading the book "The Shape of Things" by Dayle Ann Dodds, Mrs. Johnson had the children draw an object that had a certain shape in it. A common refrain in the story was, "A rectangle is just a rectangle until you add wheels and a handle, then it becomes a wagon." For 3-D shapes, the children went on a "shape-hunt" this week and found a cylinder (a spray bottle), a sphere (cotton balls), a rectangular prism ( a box of stickers), and a cone (nose on a doll). Today, the students use Play-doh to make 3-D shapes. The students loved building 3-D pyramids, cones, and spheres with the clay. Another lesson this week was to locate the face of each 3-D shape and find it's congruent match. These words have been added to the math vocabulary word wall. It is amazing to hear the children utilize these terms and have "accountable talk" in math workshop. Mrs. Johnson makes the shape of things fun and exciting in math -- just the way it should be!

3 comments:

Moena Perry said...

Mrs. Mallon,
I am so impressed with your work. I remember you telling me about this activity in your classroom and I was sad I missed it, however, your blog has given me the opportunity to take a peek at what was going on that day.
Great Post
Perry

Anonymous said...

I think it is great that you are teaching the children to use "accountable talk" in the primary grades. It is an wonderful tool to engage the students. You all are doing a wonderful job!
Tracy

Suzanne said...

Mrs. Mallon,
As you know, I taught 5th grade math for a few years, and am thrilled at the math vocabulary your kindergarteners are learning. They will be so well prepared for what awaits them later in math. Bravo to you!

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