Teaching 3D shape in reception

[Guest]

Does anyone have any great ideas for teaching 3D shapes? I am looking for something that will be exciting and inspire the boys; I also need activities for my LA Yr 1s.

 

[AnonyMouse_3307]

Working out how many cubes vs how many spheres fit in a larger cube or other cuboid - problem solving, reasoning and explores the concepts of curved faces, corners, sides and faces in one.

 

CX

[AnonyMouse_33773]

Our oldest learn to name cuboids, cubes, spheres, cylinders, cones and pyramids (square-based), and to count their faces, edges and vertices.

We teach them the name of the shapes when they explore their properities them when building. Later we ask them to find a particular shape in a pile of wooden blocks and describe it. Not very inspired perhaps, but it's enough of a stimulating challenge it seems.

Another thing these children do is to make the shapes out of nets printed onto card, cut out, folded and taped.

If a vertex is where edges meet, what about on a cone? (Apex is not in Y1 maths, as far as I'm aware.) I'm just trying to get it right and haven't found a final answer on the Internet, only a debate (e.g. TES).

[AnonyMouse_73]

If a vertex is where edges meet, what about on a cone? (Apex is not in Y1 maths, as far as I'm aware.) I'm just trying to get it right and haven't found a final answer on the Internet, only a debate (e.g. TES).

It does depend on the context which is why you will see slightly different definitions. I think vertices are more year two anyway? I'd have no problem using apex, it highlights that cones spheres and cylinders don't follow the same rules as polyhedra because they have curved surfaces.There's plenty of time later to get into deeper discussions about infinite lines and planes.

[AnonyMouse_33773]

It does depend on the context which is why you will see slightly different definitions. I think vertices are more year two anyway? I'd have no problem using apex, it highlights that cones spheres and cylinders don't follow the same rules as polyhedra because they have curved surfaces.There's plenty of time later to get into deeper discussions about infinite lines and planes.

'Apex' is not mentioned in the National Curriculum for Key Stage 1, but cones are. Just wanting to make sure I got it right.

In any case, I now see that describing 3-D shapes doesn't come in until Year 2. I obviously didn't read carefully.

Year 1: Recognise and name common 3-D shapes (e.g. cuboid, cubes, pyramids, spheres)

Year 2: Identify and describe the properties of common 3-D shapes, including the number of edges, vertices and faces

We have a small number of children who stay with us until they are 5 1/2 and some younger ones who have maths skills and understanding covering the early learning goals, so need to provide more advanced learning opportunities.

[Guest]

We explore/investigate sliders and rollers in Nursery. Children predict which will roll and which will slide, before testing it out. Some interesting results e.g. a half sphere - children tend to guess it will roll as it's round, but it slides! Also printing with junk modelling really shows the shapes of faces clearly