From Ms. Curran: Investigations into 3-D Geometry

Blocks and Buildings is the final math unit in first grade and the second of two units in the Grade 1 geometry strand of Investigations. This strand develops students’ ideas about the attributes of 2-D and 3-D shapes and how these attributes determine their classification. In this unit, students look carefully at 3-D shapes and the 2-D shapes that are their faces and spend time describing and comparing them. 

Students took time to relate 3-D shapes to 2-D pictures of the shapes, related 3-D shapes to real-world objects, described and named 3-D shapes, observed and described attributes of 3-D shapes, compared attributes of 3-D shapes, developed language to describe and compare 3-D shapes to their 2-D faces, and compared size, shape and orientation of a 3-D object.       

During this unit the students went on a shape hunt around the classroom to find objects in the room that were 3-D shapes. The children were given the challenge of drawing 3-D shapes, drawing geoblock structures and building geoblock structures from pictures. The children worked together to play Build, Draw, Switch, Build. In this game each child builds a geoblock structure, draws the ¨blueprint” of the structure, switches their drawing with someone else and then tries to build the other person’s structure based on the drawing.