#3834. Shape Spies

Mathematics, level: Kindergarten
Posted Sun Oct 1 06:16:51 PDT 2006 by Sharona Arbeit (MorahSharona@aol.com).
Yeshiva of Flatbush, Brooklyn, NY
Materials Required: camera, follow up sheet, large oak tag for poster
Activity Time: 15 minutes to "spy" 30 minutes to complete
Concepts Taught: recognizing shapes in 3 dimensions

I have been reviewing basic shapes (circle, square, triangle, rectangle) and encouraging the children to translate the shapes that they are familiar with in two dimensions into three dimensions, hence the "shape spies" activity. It was gratifying to see them recognize the clock as a circle, the water-fountain as a circle, the tiles as squares, etc. They were pretty excited about the "spy" part, too.
We took a walk around the school and I asked the children to quietly indicate when they found a familiar shape in an everyday object. I photographed the children pointing to the object (they loved that part!) and printed the photos, making a poster of the items they found, and sorting them by shape. The poster was mounted in the classroom near the math center, available for the children to study and copy. I typed the names of the objects for them (this activity was done in September and not all of the children are comfortable with writing yet)and had them fill in the attached sheet. I had the shapes drawn on the sheet as well, however it appears that they did not copy here.

My name:______________________________________________
We are shape spies!
We walked around the school building and found shapes everywhere! Here are some of the things we found:

We found these squares:

We found these rectangles:

We found these triangles:

We found these circles: