T1s have been investigating both 2D and 3D shapes in Maths during their remote learning sessions. They have learnt how to recognise, name and describe the properties of shapes and have played matching games and enjoyed practical shape investigations to help consolidate their understanding.
After 3D shape recognition was secure, the children were tasked with the challenge of finding objects from around their homes and sorting them according to their properties. Some children also used the objects to print 2D shapes and label these and others painted their found shapes to separate them into groups. They have also learnt about faces, edges and vertices as a way of describing 3D shapes. One T1 child commented, ‘I raced around the house to find 3D objects and I even used an old tennis ball for a sphere!’.
As an extension activity, the children investigated which 3D shapes they could make using spaghetti and small marshmallows or dough to hold the shapes together. The structures included: cubes, cuboids, triangular-based and square-based prisms, triangular prisms and more. As each 3D shape was constructed, the children were encouraged to think about their properties and name each shape. Another T1 said, ‘I started with a 2D square and then turned it into a 3D cube. Then I worked out that you could make a cuboid from a cube if you make the lengths with longer spaghetti. It was fun and I ate the marshmallows at the end!’.
