Shape and Space Activities

The activities in this booklet are intended to help students visualise and describe shapes and their properties. The purpose of the activities is to encourage students to picture things in their mind and use mathematical vocabulary to describe them, this was a key feature of the National Numeracy Strategy.

The booklet contains activities in which students are asked to imagine mathematical situations, the longer ones being set in common contexts, and describe or sketch their responses. The contexts used are queues, picnics, and paving stones.

A variety of problems includes some which could be used as group activities or others for individuals. For each activity there are clear objectives, the resources required, instructions for the teacher on how to present the activity and questions to pose.

Activities to promote discussion are:

Year One: Make and describe patterns and pictures using everyday materials.

Year Two: Make and describe 3-D shapes using mathematical vocabulary to describe position.

Year Three: Identify lines of symmetry in simple shapes, and recognise shapes with no line of symmetry and identify right angles.

Year Four: Recognise equilateral and isosceles triangles, recognise positions and directions and make clockwise and anti-clockwise turns.

Year Five: Recognise reflective symmetry, recognise parallel and perpendicular lines, identify different nets for an open cube.

Year Six: Describe and visualise properties of 2-D shapes and recognise quadrilaterals.