We just started a unit focusing on building with and identifying three dimensional shapes and their properties. I find that the most difficult part for the kids is the language used during this unit. Not only is the vocabulary brand new, it is not regularly used in life or at school. Yes during this unit, but not again until the math benchmark testing or until next year! Let's face it, it isn't every day that you hear Kindergarten students walking around using words like rectangular prism, sphere, and cylinder. Students are introduced to the solids by sorting and classifying classroom objects into the following three categories.
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| "This look like a box." |
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| "This look like a ball." |
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| "This looks like a can." |
I made the video below as a fun way to reinforce the language used during this unit of study.
One focus of the unit is which solids are easy to build with, and which are challenging. This student told me that triangular prisms are hard to build with because of the "points" and because they have "slides" on the sides. However, take a close look at the fourth layer up from the bottom. He managed to balance two triangular prisms on their vertices When I asked him how he did it, he said, "It's easy...I mean it is just balance Mrs. Haggerty."
