Jenni Way has 3 interesting articles on the Nrich website which provide a wonderful insight into children’s learning about shape, and give some wonderful ideas for the classroom;

• The development of Spatial and Geometric thinking: 5-18
• The development of Spatial and Geometric thinking: Co-ordinating Space in Drawings
• The development of Spatial and Geometric thinking: the Importance of Instruction

A key point is to avoid stereotypical prototypes; children need to see a range of shapes, e.g. different types of triangles, in different orientations [often, children fail to recognise a square if it is rotated by 45 degrees, and label it as a ‘diamond’

Activity A – Shape sorting

Make use of feely bags/boxes, sorting ‘everyday objects’ like shells, food containers etc. Explore shape families – putting all the 4 sided figures together, pointing out that a square is also a rectangle [ and a parallelogram…]

‘Snowball activity’ – choose a shape, record something about it, then talk to a partner, find one thing that is different about your shapes? Now get into groups of 4 what is the same about your shapes?

Activity B – Matching Triangles

An excellent problem solving activity which challenges children’s perception that a triangle has to have a horizontal base.

Activity C - Let’s investigate triangles

This activity involves children using plastic geostrips to investigate triangles with sides of different lengths.

Activity D - Making pictures

Encourage the children to use shapes to make pictures – mosaic pieces, sticky paper shapes, ‘fuzzy felts’. Can they make an animal with a circular head, a triangular body etc… Ask the children to make ‘ruler’ pictures –use a ruler to draw a series of intersecting lines and to colour in each enclosed shape, talking about the properties of these shapes and naming them as they do so.

Allow children to print with 3D shapes, making 2D images of the faces on the 3D shape. Which shapes have square faces? Did you print with any shapes with circular faces? What happens when you print with a sphere? A cylinder?

Fold paper in half, in different ways. If they make one fold on a square, what shapes can they make? Can they make one fold and make a four sided shape that isn’t a rectangle? –

Tangrams are a wonderful way of exploring the properties of a square along with developing their visualisation skills. Nrich provide a good starting point although many more tangram related resources are available online.

Activity E - Shape hunts

Allow the children to hunt for shapes in their local environment, at school and at home. They could be given ‘detective kits’ (either images or simple sentences) to help with their identification. Give the children cameras to record their findings and share these with others, once back in the classroom.

Activity F - Elastic shapes

Use elastic bands to create different shapes on your own hand or pegged boards and elastic bands. Move on to making large scale shapes with large elastic loops, on a large floor grid, standing at intersections. These shapes can then be rotated or copied by another group. Change the shape by adding another person – another side and another corner.

Examples of what children should be able to do, in relation to each (boxed) Programme of Study statement

Pupils should be taught to recognise and name common 2-D and 3-D shapes, including [for example] rectangles (including squares), circles, triangles, cuboids (including cubes), pyramids and spheres.

Give each child this shape

Child A

Child B

Child C

Child D

Look at the Shape I have given you. Tell me one thing about the shape.

Hand each child this shape.

Child A:cylinder

Child B:triangular prism

Child C:cone

Child D:cube

Look at the shape I have given you. Tell me one thing about the shape.

(Give each child two different shapes.)

Tell me something that is the same about the two shapes.

Now tell me something that is different abiout the two shapes.

One shape has 2 long sides and 2 short sides.

Tick (✔) it.

Fred draws round the bottom of a cone.

Tick (✔) the shape that Fred draws.

• ‘A Lesson on Shapes’

from Teachers’ TV shows a whole ‘uncut’ lesson with Year 2 children focusing on 2D and 3D shapes. Some useful teaching ideas and the opportunity to have the ‘fly on the wall’ view.