Show each child a collection of five shapes and tell them that you have a secret rule that they are sorted by. Tell the students that they will be “shape detectives” and help you use shape clues to discover what the secret rule is. Gather students in a circle where all can see and have access to the bags of two- and three-dimensional real world and model shapes. Have the students work in pairs to sort a bag of shapes. Once students have sorted their shapes, students should share their sorting rules with the class and show examples. As students are sharing their sorting rules, ask the following guiding questions: What is the same about your shapes? What is different about your shapes? Could you sort your shapes by a different sorting rule? Allow students the opportunity to examine and talk about the shapes. Lead the class in generating a list of characteristics of each shape and record on an anchor chart. As students are looking at the shapes and discussing characteristics of each shape, ask guiding questions to scaffold their thinking such as the following: Which shapes are curved? Which are not? Which shapes roll? Which do not? How would you describe a triangular prism? How are the cube and the rectangular prism the same? How are they different? Can you identify how many corners, sides, faces there are on the shape? What can you tell me about the shape? What else do you notice? Students will share their rules for sorting their shapes and defend their thinking. SMP 4: Model with mathematics – Students will model mathematics by the way that they sort the objects and their justification for the sorting. SMP 6: Attend to precision – Student use the correct mathematical vocabulary when comparing shapes and discussing their solutions.
different design (e.g., a “tree”) with the four triangles (where each triangle touches at least one other triangle) and have one student draw and name the group’s design. The students should look at one another design’s to see if they are the same or different and explain why. Ask the students to create different designs, each time using six green triangles. Each triangle must touch at least one other triangle. Ask the students to tell what object the design reminds them of, draw the design, and show how the same design could be created with other pattern blocks. Gather the whole class together to sort their drawings. Encourage them to find different ways to sort the drawings. Some examples may be by the type of drawings that are congruent or by the type of object the design represents. Next, ask the students to choose any set of four shapes they wish that are not all triangles and to make as many different designs with their set as possible. They should draw their design in their math journal and answer the following question: How can I put shapes together and take them apart to form other shapes? Extension: Show the students a pattern block picture(see attachment) and encourage the students to find all the different sets of blocks that could be used to create the picture. Activity 2 UDL Components Multiple Means of Representation Multiple Means Tell the students that they will make pattern block designs. The blocks in their design should touch. They should use 2 or more colors of blocks. Try making a design with a total of 5 pattern blocks. Give students time to work. Then have a volunteer show his design to the group. Tell the students to repeat this activity, but try to find as many SMP 1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them - Students create designs using two or more colors of block with a total of five blocks. SMP 2: Reason abstractly and quantitatively – Students share their thinking about the Guiding Questions