Sorting and Describing Shapes and Objects

Strand: Shape and Space (3-D Objects and 2-D Shapes)
Outcomes: 6 and 7

Step 5: Follow-up on Assessment

Guiding Questions

What conclusions can be made from assessment information?
How effective have instructional approaches been?
What are the next steps in instruction?

A. Addressing Gaps in Learning

Students who have difficulty understanding 3-D objects and 2-D shapes will benefit from ongoing structured and unstructured experiences sorting shapes and objects, using shapes to make tiling or tessellating patterns, or building using objects or blocks. Repeated use of geometric language in everyday experiences and tasks involving spatial reasoning will increase students understanding of geometry concepts.

For example:

Have students work with pattern blocks to build 2-D patterns that follow certain rules; e.g., the blocks cannot be stacked, the table or floor cannot show through anywhere in the pattern, the sides of the pieces have to fit exactly. Model the use of geometric terms by referring to the blocks as triangles, quadrilaterals and hexagons. Specific language for quadrilaterals is not expected in Grade 3; however, squares, trapezoids and rhombuses can be referred to using their proper names, or as the orange, red and blue quadrilaterals. Rhombuses can also be called diamonds. The important feature that students need to recognize is that they have four sides.
Have students work with tangrams, tiles or pattern blocks and printed outlines (with or without internal lines depending on student ability) to fit shapes into an outline. Increase student motivation by accessing the virtual tangram online at the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives site at http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/NAV/frames_asid_268_g_1_t_3.html?open=activities&from=topic_t_3.html.
Have students work with geoboards to copy shapes from other geoboards or from prepared cards.
Gather a group together with a set of wooden blocks. As they play with the blocks, model the use of the terms face, edge and vertex, and encourage students to match faces and count edges and vertices as part of their building. A set of blocks that included pyramids and triangular prisms would be best suited to addressing gaps in student learning about
3-D objects.

B. Reinforcing and Extending Learning

Students who have achieved or exceeded the outcomes will benefit from ongoing opportunities to apply and extend their learning. These activities should support students in developing a deeper understanding of the concept and should not progress to the outcomes in subsequent grades. Consider strategies, such as:

Provide information for parents about polygons and the features of 3-D shapes. Encourage parents to look for activities that provide students with experience sorting, patterning, tiling and constructing using shapes and objects. Direct parents to virtual manipulatives, such as tessellations, space blocks, pattern blocks, geoboards, isometric geoboards, pentominoes and tangrams, found online at the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives site at http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/NAV/topic_t_3.html, or encourage them to engage in similar activities with their children using paper and pencil or actual manipulatives. The tessellations activity is an excellent extension of activities about polygons.
Students can use the pentomino shapes they have discovered for a number of games and activities. They can make composite shapes from pentominoes, and then make outlines of their shapes as pentomino puzzles for other students. They can experiment with how many different ways there are to make a 4 x 5 solid rectangle using pentomino pieces. How many pieces are used for each solution? What other sizes of rectangle might be possible? Can they make 5 x 5 or 6 x 5 rectangles? What about 3 x 5? With two sets of pentominoes in different colours, students can take turns placing pieces to fill in portions of a 10 x 10 grid, trying to be the one to place the most pieces. This game can be varied by changing the number of pieces, the size of the grid and the number of players. The commercially available game "Blokus" is a more complex variation of this game.
Students who seem able to reason about the properties of shapes can make up and exchange shape riddles with each other or with an older person. For example, what shapes can have more than four square corners? What kinds of polygons can you make with three of their sides the same length? What quadrilaterals can you make that have all four sides equal?
Download Activity: Traffic Lights for 3-D Objects and 2-D Shapes