3D Forms With Clay and Popsicle Sticks
In this lesson, children will construct three-dimensional objects using popsicle sticks and modeling clay.
Learning Goals:
This lesson will help children meet the following educational standards:
- Analyze characteristics and properties of two- and three-dimensional geometric shapes and develop mathematical arguments about geometric relationships
- Use visualization, spatial reasoning and geometric modeling to solve problems
Learning Targets:
After this lesson, children should be more proficient at:
- Recognizing, naming, building, drawing, comparing, and sorting 2D and 3D shapes
- Describing attributes and parts of 2D and 3D shapes
- Investigating and predicting the results of putting together and taking apart 2D and 3D shapes
- Creating mental images of geometric shapes using spatial memory and spatial visualization
- Recognizing and representing shapes from different perspectives
- Recognizing geometric shapes and structures in the environment and specifying their location
Step 1: Gather materials.
- Clay
- Popsicle sticks
- Pictures of 2D and 3D shapes
- A cube, pentagon, pentagonal prism, prism, pyramid, rectangle, square, and triangle
Step 2: Introduce activity.
- Show the children 2D and 3D shapes and explain how they are different.
- Ask the children what they notice about the two different types of shapes.
- Explain the difference between 2D and 3D shapes:
- 2D shapes have two dimensions: length and width.
- 3D shapes have three dimensions: length, width and height.
Step 3: Engage children in lesson activities.
- Show the children how to form equal-sized balls of clay (about the size of large peas).
- Stick popsicle sticks into the clay balls to form a square.
- Then model how to make a cube by adding another square and connecting them with toothpicks.
- Introduce vocabulary words such as face, edge and vertice.
- Ask the children to build shapes and review their vocabulary words, using their shapes as examples.
- Ask the children to count how many faces each shape has: "How many vertices (corners) does each shape have? How many edges?"
- Document their answers on a record sheet.
Step 4: Engineering vocabulary
- Cube: A solid shape that has 6 square faces of equal size, 8 vertices (corners), and 12 equal edges (use a pair of dice as an example)
- Edge: The side of a polygon where 2 faces of a solid figure meet
- Face: A flat surface of a 3D shape
- Rectangle: A 4-sided flat shape with straight sides and interior angles that are all right angles (90°); also, opposite sides are parallel and of equal length (a square is a special type of rectangle)
- Square: A shape with 4 straight sides that are the same length or size and four corners
- Two-dimensional: A shape having 2 dimensions: length and width
- Three-dimensional: A shape having 3 dimensions: length, width and height
- Triangle: A pointy shape with 3 sides and 3 corners
- Triangular pyramid: 4 triangular bases joined with each other and all are congruent to each other
- Vertice: Corner (the point where the edges of a solid figure meet)
Suggested Books
- 3-D Shapes (My Path to Math) by Marina Cohen
- The Shape of Things by Dayle Ann Dodds
- When a Line Bends….a Shape Begins by Rhonda Gowler Greene
Music and Movement
Outdoor Connections
- Head outdoors with popsicle sticks and balls of clay and ask the children to use these materials to build models of the structures they see outside, such as their school building, an equipment shed, or a house.
- The children can also work together as a group to build a model of a cool new playground design or the local neighborhood.
Web Resources
- These printable marshmallow and toothpick 3D-shape worksheets from Little Bins, Little Hands will help young children learn how to identify and build shapes.
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