In the book Teach Like a PIRATE by Dave Burgess, he talks about increasing student engagement by getting kiddos up and moving. That reminded me of an activity my 5th grade teachers recently did. They were studying attributes of 3-dimensional shapes (edges, faces, vertices, etc.), and when you think about how we usually have kids practice that skill, it involves a worksheet and a desk. We decided it would be more interesting to get the kiddos up and out of their desks. I went to my go-to website for math graphics, ClipArt ETC, and found some great images of pyramids and prisms. All their graphics come in three sizes, so I was able to get images large enough to fill a letter-sized page. For the activity, the teachers posted the pictures around the room. With music playing in the background, students moved from picture to picture, counting and recording the number of edges, faces, and vertices for each figure in their math journals. After students had completed the “gallery walk” they came back together to discuss their observations about the different shapes and look for connections and patterns. Talk about engagement!
Want to try it yourself? Click here to grab the file with the pictures. I’d love to hear how you use the graphics, so please comment! 🙂
I think this will be one I use with my 3rd graders for a fun test prep review activity in the coming weeks. 🙂
Rebecca
Ladybugs Lounge
What a fun way to do test prep, Rebecca!! I love that idea. 🙂
I am going to try this with my fifth graders!
I predict they will love it! 🙂
I came across this on pinterest. I hope you don’t mind me asking. How did you attach a file to this. I also have a blog i just started and I can attach videos and pictures but cant find how you would attach a file. Wondering if you can help me out. Awesome stuff on your blog!
The trick is that I’m not actually attaching a file. I upload the file into Google Docs (some people use Dropbox), with gives it a web address (a URL). The you simply add a hyperlink. So I highlighted the word ‘here’, chose LINK, and pasted the web address in the box. Hope that helps! Good luck with blogging! 🙂
Definitely saving the file of geometric figures! Thanks so much for sharing this and for putting me onto the clipart site! I have that one saved in my Diigo bookmarks now. I know I’ll be checking that one out again.
What an awesome freebie! Thanks so much for sharing it! I featured your post as the Free Printable of the Day at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/LivingMontessoriNow and on Pinterest.