This February, we are currently exploring shapes and their attributes. Kindergarteners, by the end of the year, should be able to identify most shapes (up to as many sides as an octagon, and other shapes such as a half-circle, a crescent, a star and a heart).
Instruction includes having classroom exploratory time for students to use different manipulatives and materials to create two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes. Different materials include play-doh, geoboards with rubber bands, and old-fashioned paper and pencil. The following art project by one of our students explored layering half circles onto one another to make leaves in a tree:
After exploratory time, we gather to discuss what makes a shape a shape. We create anchor charts together to share knowledge and to make content more accessible to all students: