It is important for our students to not only be able to identify shapes, but to know age-appropriate definitions of those shapes. Students enter the second grade with many misconceptions about shapes. For example: 
When asked what shape "A" is, most students in second grade can tell you that it is a triangle. When asked what shape "B" is, some students get very confused. It does not look like shape "A" so it cannot be a triangle. This is when the definitions of the shapes come into play. We teach our students to go through the definition and see if the shape fits the definition, while always using proper terminology.
To practice knowing the definition of several polygons, we play shape games. Check out one of our favorites below.
Shape Practice from Melissa Ross on Vimeo.
4 comments:
How cute is this! Love it!
Hi! I am a first year teacher preparing and would love to use this song - where can I find it? Thanks!
The song is from the website Math Party. (http://www.themathparty.com/index.htm) They have a lot of motivational math songs. I do not suggest using a lot of them in your classroom because they emphasize memorizing procedures rather than understanding. My students have already learned about each shape conceptually and we just use this song as a fun game. We did not use this song to learn about our shapes.
I just showed the two triangles to my 7-year-old son, and asked him what he'd call them. He said the first was a triangle and the second was a diamond. I said, "Diamond?" He said, "Yeah, but they're usually more-sided."
(I didn't correct him, because I figure he'll get there sooner if he doesn't feel tricked.) Interesting.
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