[abc123abc123]

I am introducing shapes after Thanksgiving. I have the students on Monday looking at the different shapes...discussing the attributes. Tuesday we are doing geoboards. I would like some activities that help with comparing different shapes on how they are alike and different. Thanks for your help! =)

[irises]

Sit on the carpet with a set of shape cards distributed 1 per student. Put your shape card on a large piece of construction paper. Let's say it's a rectangle. Go around the circle and ask each student to try and decide if their card fit your rule which you don't tell them. Begin thinking of a simple rule such as shapes with all straight sides. If a child tries to put a circle in. You say that does not fit my rule and it is placed off the paper. If a child tries to put in a crescent in, you say the same thing. As you go around, see if they can guess your rule. (You can actually introduce the unit with the same game but about students. Have the entire class stand up but then ask everyone to sit down excep all girls wearing something in their hair and see if students can guess your rule.) Then have pairs of students sort sets of shape cards according to a couple of student chosen attributes and then they make a poster by gluing in the shapes and labeling how each group is sorted. I am doing these activities this week with my class. Hope this helps a bit.

[Daffodil09]

I heard a song about shapes that I altered for each shape and it's unique attributes...

(to the tune You Are My Sunshine)
I am a square, a lovely square
I have 4 sides and they're all the same
4 equal sides and 4 equal corners
I am a square that is my name

So I took the tune and just changed the words depending on what shape we were looking at....for the rhombus I used a poem

My name is Ronnie Rhomus
and I look like a kite
my 4 sides are equal
but my corners are pulled tight

We learned the songs and poem before we played the guess my rule game.
Hope this helps!

[abc123abc123]

Thank you two for your help. I can't wait to try these out!