Shapes in the Kindergarten Classroom

Last week my blog explored number sense and how it could be taught in a kindergarten classroom. Looking at the next generation common core standards next up we are going to be looking into how to teach kindergartners Geometry. 

I taught this to kindergartners last year for the first time and I expected that since it was shapes that it would be easy for them. I learned that this topic can be just as difficult as addition and subtraction for a lot of students. I am glad the next gen common core standards are going to address this in a way that I think will helps students grasp concepts of 2d and 3d shapes. Here are the learning goals for the next gen common core standards.

·  Describe their physical world using geometric ideas (e.g., shape, orientation, spatial relations) and appropriate vocabulary; 

·   Identify, name, and describe basic two-dimensional shapes, such as squares, triangles, circles, rectangles, and hexagons, presented in a variety of ways (e.g., with different sizes and orientations), as well as three-dimensional shapes such as cubes, cones, cylinders, and spheres; 

·   Use basic shapes and spatial reasoning to model objects in their everyday environment to create and compose more complex shapes; and  explore* coins and begin identifying of pennies and dimes.

With these in mind my next question is how can we teach this in class? More specifically, how can we teach this so that the students are engaged and get the most from the lesson? Like any good teacher I took to the internet to find the answer.

https://pocketofpreschool.com/2d-shape-activities/

This site has a lot of good activities for kids. All of which are centered around the use of manipulatives. It could be creating a triangle out of Legos or making a square out of number cubes. The key piece to this learning will be the hands-on experience. Once doing this we can work on the objective of finding shapes in the physical world as the students will already be familiar with the appropriate shapes.

Lastly, I would like to share a video that we use in my classroom. This man Jack Hartmann (no relation) has so many great videos dealing with shapes, numbers, letters and words. These have been extremely effective in our classroom so maybe someone else could benefit from them.