Geometry in Grade One!

Inside: Two activities for learning about geometry in first grade.

I LOVE teaching geometry. There are so many fun activities you can do with Grade ones and they don’t even realize they’re doing math. It’s all just fun and games!

Here’s what we’ve been up to.

These monster shapes were SO much fun to make. I got the idea from Em at Curious Firsties and only changed it up a little bit.

It’s essentially a listening exercise combined with 2D and 3D shape identification, all rolled into a cute craft.

Before beginning, make sure everyone has all of the following materials.

Materials:

1. coloured cardstock
2. large circle tracers
3. pre-cut rectangular legs
4. Hershey Kisses
5. pom poms
6. mini marshmallows
7. sponges pre-cut into cubes

When the kids are quiet, give the following step-by-step directions. The idea is to stress careful listening and give the direction once.

Directions:

1. Trace a large circle on your coloured paper and cut out
2. Put your name on the back
3. Draw a half circle on the bottom of the large circle
4. Outline the half circle in black
5. Glue a cone (i.e., the Hershey Kiss) in the middle of the large circle
6. Trace 3 circles using your glue stick as a tracer and cut out
7. Walk around the room and trade your little circles for other colours so they do not match your big circle
8. Glue the 3 circles above the cone
9. Glue a sphere (pom pom) on each little circle
10. Glue the cylinders (marshmallows) in the half circle
11. Glue the long rectangles on the back of the large circle, underneath the half circle
12. Glue the cubes onto the bottom of the long rectangles

And voila! The cutest little shape monsters. My kids LOVED them!

Building cubes, rectangular prisms, and pyramids using toothpicks and mini marshmallows is an oldie but a goldie.

I love how some of the kids took their 3D shapes and combined them into the glorious structures you see above!

Whenever we do this activity I don’t give them any instructions other than the shapes have to be 3D. They cannot be lying flat on the table

Very quickly someone figures it out and then everyone follows suit.

That’s it for now!

Do you have a favourite geometry lesson? I’d love to hear about it.