What Shape Am I? SOURCE: http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=10715
AUTHOR: Utah GRADE LEVEL/SUBJECT: 1st grade; Math Objective: Students will identify, describe, and create simple geometric figures.
Materials:
- Shape Poems and Songs (pdf)
- Attribute blocks or paper models of shapes
Step 1: Hook
I will being the lesson by having students play I Spy. For example, I will ask questions like:
· I spy something that is large and has four sides and four corners. This object can be used to write on or hang pictures on. What is it? (whiteboard)
· I spy something that has no sides and no corners but it does have hands. What is it? (clock)
I will then ask students to name some shapes they know as I write them on the board. I will explain to students that we are going to be shape spies today.
This activity will capture students’ attention and activate their schema. It builds upon background knowledge of objects they are familiar with before introducing the new shape concepts. One strategy used is elaboration because students will be adding new information by connecting their existing knowledge of shapes with the new information about shapes they will learn.
Step 2: Instruction
The students will be more ready to focus their attention on learning new shapes because of the experience of guessing the ‘I spy’ shapes and the idea of being a shape spy. When their attention is focused, they can then prepare to transfer the information from their sensory memory, the system that holds sensory information very briefly to their working memory, the information that a person is focusing on at a given moment. The transfer from sensory memory to working memory must occur before students will eventually be able to transfer the information into their long-term memory. In order to have students transfer from sensory memory to working memory, students will choose a shape and identify it by describing its attributes. After picking partners, the students will walk around the classroom and compare their shape to an object in the classroom. Students will place the shape on top of an object to make sure they match. This is also activating perception, the process of detecting a stimulus and assigning meaning to it and is constructed based on both physical representations from the world and existing knowledge. Students will return to their desks and fill out one part of a Venn-Diagram. Students will then choose a different partner and complete the activity of choosing a shape and comparing it to an object in their classroom surroundings. They will once again return to their seat and complete the Venn-Diagram. This is an example of distributed practice because students are practicing one shape and using time to complete the worksheet as a rest interval before starting in on a new shape.
Venn-Diagram
Step 3: Practice
As an example of an acronmyn (a technique for remembering names, phrases, or steps by using the first letter of each word to form a new, memorable word) and a chain mnemonic (a memory strategy that associates one element in a series with the next element—in this case, because the words make sense as a sentence), students will learn the sentence Cindy Sees Red Trucks to remember the first letter of the four basic shapes- C for circle, S for square, R for rectangle and T for triangle. In order to prevent decay, the weakening and fading of memories with the passage of time, I will teach them the following shape song chants:
Round and round I play my game.
Start at the top and around the bend.
Up we go, there is no end.
My four sides and angles are just the same.
Slide or flip me, I don’t care
I’m always the same, I’m a square!
Ricky Rectangle
Ricky Rectangle is my name.
My four angles are the same.
My sides are sometimes short or long.
Hear me sing my happy song.
Trisha Triangle
Trisha Triangle is the name for me.
Tap my sides one, two, three.
Flip me, slide me, you will see...
A kind of triangle I’ll always be!
By learning these shape song chants, students will be able to rehearse or practice their newly acquired shape knowledge and will remember it, being able to transfer between their long-term memory and their working memory when needed because of the fun song chants that they learned to go along with each shape.
Great cognitive strategies throughout. One comment on the acronym you suggest. It depends on the literacy skills of the kids you'd teach in this lesson, but it's possible that with content such as this, students may not have yet fully developed their automaticity for reading. That means that introducing an acronym to help them associate the first letter of each word with a shape may not be the most effective strategy b/c the kids may also struggle to know which letters make those sounds. The rote memorization, shape-song chants you present would probably be more effective.
ReplyDeleteJust my two cents.