Geometry for Grades 1-3 - Classroom Callouts

I taught Grade Three in Texas for 15 years and administered several Texas Assessments including the STAAR. Each year, teaching geometry to prepare for the assessment seemed a bit of a mystery, especially the three-dimensional shapes. As I taught the attributes of the 3-D shapes, I had unanswered questions and felt like I didn’t have enough knowledge in this area; and the information given to me was lacking. Then as a 1st grade teacher, I also had the same questions and wanted to make sure I was teaching my first graders correctly. I decided to research a little deeper to see if I could find the answers this time. Today’s post we’re going to explore the questions I had and what answers I found for properly teaching Geometry in Grades 1-3.

Grade 1-3 Geometry Questions:

• Do cones, spheres and cylinders have faces, edges and vertices? If not, why do all of the worksheets ask questions about it?

• Do you treat cones, spheres and cylinders as three-dimensional figures with polygons as faces?

I always thought that 3-D shapes with curved edges should not have the same types of questions as the shapes without curved edges. I thought that asking for the faces, edges, and vertices on shapes with curved edges was confusing. It seemed like every product I could find asked those very questions.

Finding Answers

Finally, I found my answers on a Released STAAR Assessment. As a 3rd grade teacher, I had noticed that the questions on the assessments never asked about faces, edges and vertices on shapes with curved edges. I decided to look at what questions were being asked about 3-D shapes. I thought that finding questions about 3-D shapes might clear things up and to my surprise, I was right! Here is a snip of the questions that answered my questions.

(3rd Grade STAAR 2016) As well as a snip about the vertex of a cone.

http://tea.texas.gov/Student_Testing_and_Accountability/Testing/State_of_Texas_Assessments_of_Academic_Readiness_(STAAR)/STAAR_Released_Test_Questions/

https://www.reference.com/math/many-vertices-cone-3266f12ef78d4e6b

The answer is “F” (just as I had suspected). The 3-D Shapes with curved edges do not have vertices. Look at answer choice “H” – they also do not have edges.

Clearly these shapes have edges, but the edges they are referring to are straight edges. The same goes with vertices (see snip above.)

I believe we need to be teaching our students that when we look for faces, edges and vertices, we are looking for flat faces and straight edges. Also, we need to share the information above about the vertices (vertex) of any shape.

Summing it Up

With this finding, I stopped asking the wrong questions about 3-D shapes with curved edges and passed this information along to my coworkers who were also teaching geometry in grades 1-3.

Here is a resource especially created with these findings in mind.

This page is part of an anchor chart for teachers to build.
I have added some clarifying adjectives about the attributes of the shapes (flat faces and straight edges).
I feel that this will make it easier to understand and answer the questions.

Grab this Free Sampler!

I hope the information in this post was useful to you. Don’t forget to save the image below to your teaching resource pinterest board for future reference.

Thanks for stopping by!
~ Carrie

*credits: Whimsy Clips, KG Fonts

Other posts that may interest you: Creating a First Grade Sub Plan

Grade 1-3 Geometry Questions:

Finding Answers

Summing it Up

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