Monday, March 7, 2011

3D Shape Hunt

Our 3D shape hunt using digital cameras today went very well.  We started our lesson with a quick review of the names and characteristics of 3D shapes as well as digital camera etiquette. Students were then given a list of shapes to find and a digital camera to record their investigations. 
Student taking a picture of a Coke can as an
example of a cylinder. Love it!! Yes, I am a Coke-aholic.
There's always one, if not two on my desk.  :-)

 (Organizational side note: as I gave each group their camera, I took a picture of them so I would know which group had each camera when I downloaded the pictures).

It was amazing to see the variety of items that each group found that fit the characteristics of our shapes. To be honest, I was a little leary of how this would turn out as I wanted it to be purposeful, not a waste of our learning time, and not just about using the cameras. In the end I can honestly say I will do it again next year but with a few tweaks. It was a great way to check for understanding and for kids to collaborate and work together.  For several of my children it was also a great activity to practice their social skills. It was easy to see which kiddos had a good grasp of the concepts and which needed that little extra bit of help. Once I download the pictures, I plan to print them off, have the groups label their objects and then turn it into a class shape booklet.


Student taking a picture of our globe as an example of a sphere.
Edited to add:
I had a hard time deciding exactly how to use all of our pictures but in the end, Louie, our leprechaun took care of the issue for me. He put most of the pictures into a Smilebox slideshow and uploaded it to our blog. The kids got a kick out of seeing their pics and naming the shapes but were even more enamored by the fact that Louie was to blame!! Click here to see Louie's slideshow of  our 3D shapes.

4 comments:

  1. I love this idea... I plan to do 3d shapes right after spring break and i plan to "borrow" this idea! Thanks!

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  2. Thanks for the idea!! I will have to try this and remember for next year too!

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  3. I did it today..... it turned out great! I showed your smilebox first and we identified all your shapes. My tip would be to put a "leader" (older student or adult) with each group. I did 5 groups with 4 or 5 in each group, they had a list of 12 things to find...... it took a little longer than I thought it would and a few groups had trouble cooperating which is how the leader could have helped. I plan to make a shape book with the photos! thanks

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  4. Yay!! GLad that it went well for you! I love the fact that you used our smilebox as part of your lesson too. Cool! I like your leader idea as well. I can see with 4-5 in a group how that would be helpful. I was fortunate enough to hunt down enough cameras to have 2 per group- not a lot of room for arguement. Did you send your kids out around the whole school or just in your classroom?

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