I'm Late to the Party!

The Geometry Party that is!  I have not had much time this week to create, but I do have several activities that I had created in the past for geometry that could be used in math work stations.  I'll start with the most basic.  This is an activity that I would introduce at calendar in the very beginning of Kindergarten.  We spend lots of time developing the vocabulary of position words in Kindergarten.  I wanted a quick way to practice it daily, so I created the dragon fly jar activity.

It is simply two laminated jar graphics that have a ribbon attached to two dragonfly graphics pasted back to back.  I hold the jar up and hold the dragonfly in a position.  The students have to give me as many position words as they can think of to describe where the dragonfly is.  I make a "big deal" out of multiple ways to give the position.  Ex. The dragonfly is above the jar.  The dragonfly is on top of the jar.  The dragonfly is over the jar.  As the students get the hang of it they often go home and try to find new ways of saying the position words.  I had one student that said it was "hovering" over the jar.  After they get the hang of it, I would add it to a math station and have the students write stories or talk about it with their partner.  I think you could even add several dragonflies so that they can write addition and subtraction stories with it.  Ex.  There were three dragonflies over the jar, and two dragonfies under the jar.  How many dragonflies were there in all?

Click here to get the printable.

As a former Gifted Specialist, I am a strong believer in teaching students about the history of what we are learning.  At the Primary level, I don't try to bombard them with too much, but I do like to introduce a few names and facts whenever I can.  I developed a game of Geometry "Old Maid" called Geometry "Old Euclid".  Euclid is often referred to as the Father of Geometry.  This at least introduces his name to students so that later on when they hear his name they might associate it with Geometry.

What I have the students do as they play the game is to first name the attributes of the shape and then name the shape that they are looking for.  After repeating these attributes enough times, hopefully they will remember them.  Click here if you would like the printable.

Another activity that I had created was for three dimensional shapes.  Several of my students needed repeated practice with this concept so I created a 3D shape sort using pictures of real life objects.  I included one set of labels to put on the sorting mats that have the name of the shape and a picture of the shape, and I also created a set of labels with out the picture....name only.  I glued these to the front and back of sheets of construction paper and then laminated them.  As the students become more familiar, they can flip over to the name only side.  You could even use the cards to sort by ....does it roll or slide, etc.

Click here if you would like the printables for 3D Shape Sort.

I hope these activities can help someone.  I have found so many things that people have shared online that I can only hope that some of the things that I make are helping others too.  Thanks for following along and have a TERRIFIC weekend!