Shapes and measurement

OK.  So let me begin with a big Sooo Sorry.  I have not posted in several weeks and that is just pitiful.  The only excuse I have is that I am terribly busy.  Between school, church, home, kids and hubby, it seems that all of my time is just spent.  Well spent mind you, but spent none the less.  So I am going to post numerous things tonight.  I am starting with shapes. 
We created our own scope and sequence this year.  We have a progression for everything from math to reading to writing to phonemic awareness.  It is for sell on my TPT page.  We have decided to "camp out" on math topics that are we really want the kids to master.  So, we spent almost four...yes four weeks on basic 2D shapes.  Here are a few things that we did. 

I saw this on Pinterest and thought it was great.  The mice are made from basic 2D shapes.  I had all of the shapes in a bag and I would give them specific directions like "Reach into your bag and pull out a rectangle."  It was a great formative type assessment just to get a quick snap shot where the kids were with shape mastery.

 

 

 

This was where we started.  A good ole' shapes chart.  Creating this chart took one week.  We took a basic shape each day. 

 Our Geome"Trees"

 The following things came from our shapes pack on TPT.  We also had a shapes book to complete each day.  Let me say, the children truly mastered their shapes!!  I think it was the manner that we taught it... LOTS of exploration and kids seeing shapes MANY different ways along with the time spent teaching.  We did not assume that kids already knew them.  They really didn't. We were pleased with the end results.  

These pages came from a shapes book that we made.

 

After shapes, we have mooooved onto measurement.  We began by brainstorming things that were taller and shorter than themselves.  I wanted to ensure that the children fully understand the terms shorter than and taller than.  These are just a few of the activities that we have done this week.

 We measured different items with candy corn and linking cubes.  I partnered the children up and gave them each a bag with an item inside, a handful of candy corn and 10 linking cubes.   Once we recorded the answer, they passed their bag onto the next set of partners.