3-D Shape Sort

From the apple on your desk and the coffee cup in your hand, to the cabinets along the classroom wall, basic three-dimensional shapes are found everywhere in the world around us. Introduce young mathematicians to the these common figures and the attributes that define them with this fun shape-sorting activity. Working as a whole class, children look at everyday items and decide which three-dimensional category they fit into, identifying specific physical characteristics that support their decisions. After students are familiar with the different shapes, they then work in pairs sorting sets of picture cards showing various three-dimensional objects. This fun activity would make a great addition to math rotations during a geometry unit in the primary grades.