Geometric Solids extension

If you read my post about whales you will have seen the wonderful 3D boat picture that Freya came up with. It reminded me of this fantastic extension for the geometric solids. I can’t take the credit for the idea – it was in one of the presentations at the MCI Annual conference. I have never found a blog post for it so I thought I would make one! I hope you enjoy it.

I have these beautiful geometric solids at home for Freya and Sebastian. For those that don’t know the geometric solids are part of the sensorial section of the Montessori curriculum. They are used from a very young age to have an understanding of 3D shapes and their properties. Starting with simple explorations such as “Does it roll?” Then looking at the groups of similar shapes based on properties. As the child gets older the names of the solids can be introduced and their properties. And so it continues. This extension is suitable from 4 years old. Children need to have good pencil and scissor control.

First you need to choose the geometric solid that you want to use. For the purpose of this activity I have chosen the cube.

Choose a piece of card that is at least three times the width and four times the depth. This will become apparent.

You need to draw round one of the faces of the cube, turn the cube so that you are drawing round the next face.

When drawing round the next face make sure that it connects to the first edge.

Remember you need to go in more than one direction!! The cube has 6 faces – so there should be a total of 6 squares on the card.

Once you have drawn round all six faces you are ready to cut the net out. Make sure you only cut along the external lines.

Now fold along the lines tat join the squares and it should start to form a cube.

In this case I have secured the sides with selotape. When presenting this to a child you might want to challenge them to think about adding tabs.

Voila! A perfect representation of the cube made from card. Challenge: Can you make all of the geometric solids?

As I said in my whale post, Freya has applied what she has learnt doing this to her art.