Shape Books

We just finished our unit on shapes. (Don't judge.) My favorite part of this unit is stamping the solid shapes to see what shapes appear. It's like magic and really the best way to learn this concept. I just let them paint flat side of some wooden shapes and stamp away. Don't let them dip, it doesn't work as well.

A gripe: We do Harcourt Math and my biggest complaint about the newest version of the series is a switch in the language. For instance instead of SHAPES we are supposed to teach the word FIGURES. GO FIGURE. This is ridiculous and I secretly refuse to do it teach both terms. Another ridiculous one is saying FEWER instead of LESS THAN. What? What???? Who says this? FEWER is not a useful word unless you are looking for something to rhyme with... oh never mind.

Anyway, we stamp our shapes on cardstock and this becomes a book cover. Usually I make a number book with this cover but this year I decided to make a Shape Book instead. On each page there is the word of the shape and an example to color. Then they cut out examples of the shape from magazines and practice pasting things on the page without a) covering the word and b) letting anything hang off the page. Results will vary.

Our books had triangle, rectangle, circle and square pages but of course you could add more. And if I only had a brain I probably would have made it the Solid Shape Book and they could've found spheres, cubes, cones and cylinders.

But I will NEVER call it a Figure Book. Ain't gonna happen.