Weekly Blog of Student Work

 This week, my students had an exctivity where they had to choose one shape from 6 choices (circle, square, oval, triangle, rhombas, and heart) and they had to draw a picture about something that has that shape in it. The task that the teacher intended from this was to have children draw intentionally, add detail to pictures, and write a description. For me, the task also had the goal of identifying/recognizing shapes nad being able to connect them to form objects. The "big idea" of this task could be recognizing that shapes have meaning and that most objects we see everyday are made up of a lot of different shapes that are connected. This task allowed the student to not only choose their preferred shape but also allowed them to think of anything they could that has that shape somewhere in it. Two ways the students could approach this task is to make a drawing where the shape is the main focus and the entire object (i.e. a face, a ball etc) or the student could use the shape to make a larger, more intricate, drawing (i.e. a basketball hoop, a flower, a house etc.). My students did both. Some used the shape to make one object and added detail around it (like 1 and 3) while others used it as part of something bigger (like 2). This task showed me that the students are able to identify shapes in a classroom and in the world around them, and are able to think about how people, animals, objects, and the enviornment is made up of different connecting shapes. To scaffold this, the teacher could next time make the students choose two shapes. This would draw more focus to idea of connecting shapes together. The teacher could also have a drawing prepared and have the students identify how different parts of the drawing could be different shapes.