Shape Investigation

As we’ve been talking about shapes recently, I realized that Big Brother didn’t know the difference between a “side” and a “corner” (or angle, if you really want to get technical).  I thought a fun shape investigation was in order to help him learn the difference while also reviewing the shapes!

We used our Melissa & Doug Shape Puzzle for our investigation…I already had it out earlier today working with Little Brother!  I love versatile toys like that…

Anyway, I created a chart with some markers and 2 pieces of paper.  I made a column for the shape piece to be traced, one for the number of sides, and one for the number of corners.

Then Big Brother began tracing the puzzle pieces onto our chart.  This was more difficult for him than either of us anticipated…so I ended up helping him.

After we traced the shapes, Big Brother counted the sides and the corners (angles).  It helped using puzzle pieces so that he could actually feel the points on the angles.

After this, Big Brother had so much fun finding shapes around the house and putting the puzzle shapes onto the “real” shapes.

Finally, we had a fascinating discussion about how the number of sides were equal to the number of corners.  Perhaps we have a budding mathematician on our hands?  Oh wait….nope!  I forgot.  He has my genes, after all.  ;)

And I just love this picture because you can see his reflection in the mirror, admiring his work!