As a requirement of my internship through WSU, this past week I taught a four day mini math unit on three-dimensional shapes to our afternoon preschool students. Monday, we began with an introduction to cubes, cones, spheres and cylinders by having a classroom scavenger hunt to identify these shapes in our environment. Tuesday, we explored the differences between 2D and 3D objects by defining the objects as "flat" or "not flat," noting that 2D objects can only be measured by their height and length, but 3D objects have measurable depth. Wednesday, we created a chart of our 3D shapes then cut and pasted food items from local grocery advertisements and sorted them to their matching shapes. Preschoolers then created their own shopping list by drawing food items for each shape. Thursday, we took a walking trip to Webster's Grocery Store where students used their shopping lists to search for their planned items as well as identify a multitude of grocery foods which met our definitions of our 3D shapes. We purchased cubed cheese, Bugle chips, grapes and marshmallows, which students then sorted onto their 3D shape mat prior to snack. We had a blast recognizing 3D shapes in our daily environment; their favorite activity was touring the grocery store and eating their 3D snacks!
Registered Teacher Apprenticeship- Dibble
April 16, 2025