Building Shapes with Paper and Sticks

Hi, today I’m going to talk about one way that I teach shapes to my students. So, the four shapes were going to use today are rectangle, square, circle, and triangle. So, after I have introduced the shapes and we’ve talked about them, recognizing how many sides they have, if they’re long or short, that they have curved lines or straight lines. We are going to practice building shapes. So, what I do is I will get some popsicle sticks or pieces of paper whatever you have available, and I cut them into strips and we’re going to practice putting those shapes together. So, if I would say, “Okay, boys and girls today we’re going to build a rectangle.” I would show them the rectangle I’ll say remember we’re looking for two long sides and two short sides. And then I would give them the material to build the rectangles. So, some of your really, really young kids might need a model, so I would have the model available. And I would say, “All right, let’s first lay down our big line and then next to it I’m going to put a little line, make sure they’re touching so the shape is connecting. I’m going to need my big line and then to close my shape I’m going to add my little one. Boys and girls, what shape did you build? You built a rectangle.” And so, what you could do is go through and model building each one, and then give the kids their shapes. Again, they don’t have to be colored match, you just give them some Popsicle sticks and have them go. And then you could say let’s build a triangle. So, the higher-level skill kids don’t give them a model just say everybody let’s build a triangle. And so, give them the three lines, have them build a triangle. Raise their hand when they’re done so you can check and see if, for understanding. Alright, last one. You can build a square. Say, “All right boys and girls, let’s build a square.” They’re going to line up their pieces, raise their hands to let you know they’ve built a square. Making the circle is a little bit different because there’s not straight lines. There’s curves. So, what I do with my kids, to teach them, I say, “We’ve got two curves, we put it together. Close it to make a circle.” And so, I would just have them line them up to make a circle. That’s one way and teach shapes to my students. Thanks.