1. Attributes & Analysis Unit of Study 15: Strengthening Critical Area: Describing and Analyzing Shapes Global Concept Guide: 1 of 1

2. Content Development  It is imperative that students engage in many SMP 3 focused tasks to strengthen this critical area and deepen understanding.  Students should attend to precision (SMP 6) and justify their thinking (SMP 3) with precise vocabulary in both conversation and written responses.  “During the discussions of students’ solutions is a good time to introduce the vocabulary of fractional parts. This can be quite casual and, at least for younger children, should not involve fraction symbolism. When a brownie or other region has been broken into equal shares, simply say, “We call these fourths. The whole is cut into four parts. All of the parts are the same size- fourths.” -Van de Walle and Lovin Teaching Student-Centered Mathematics:Grades K-3  “Children need to be aware of two aspects or components of fractional parts: (1) the number of parts and (2) the equality of the parts (in size, not necessarily in shape). Emphasize that the number of equal parts or fair shares that make up a whole determines the name of the fractional parts or shares. They will be familiar with halves but should quickly learn to describe thirds, fourths, fifths, and so on.” -Van de Walle and Lovin Teaching Student-Centered Mathematics: Grades K-3

3. Day 1  Essential Question: How can attributes facts help me identify and draw or model a shape?  The focus of Day 1 is to provide students additional opportunities to apply their knowledge of known geometric shapes and their attributes.  Lesson Ideas:  Shape of Things Shape of Things  What’s My RuleWhat’s My Rule  Guess My RuleGuess My Rule  To extend upon “Shape of Things,” have students identify the various shapes within your school environment and journal the location and attributes of the shape.  By the end of Day 1, students will be able to identify shapes based on attributes.

4. Day 2  Essential Question: How can I split a rectangle into rows and columns of equal sized squares?  Sample Engage:  Making a RectangleMaking a Rectangle  Provide students 12 color tiles. Students explore all the different rectangles they can make using all 12 tiles. Have students identify the how many rows and columns are in different rectangles.  It is important students understand rows are horizontal and columns are vertical.  Snap cubes or color tiles placed right next to each other will likely aid students’ conceptual understanding. Allow students to decompose large rectangle to see how many rows and how many in each row.

5. Day 3 Essential Question: How can I split up a rectangle to model halves, thirds, and fourths? The focus of Day 3 is partitioning rectangles. Sample Engage: Provide students ample time to discover the different ways they can partition their Geoboards into different parts. The more time you allow, the more creative students will become in creating equal parts. This task lends itself to enriching conversation about student justification of equal sized parts.

6. Day 3 continued  During Day 3, students need multiple opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of how to partition rectangles to model halves, thirds, and fourths.  Lesson Ideas  Sharing Equally Sharing Equally  Making Fourths Making Fourths  Portions of Making a CakeMaking a Cake  Facilitate a discussion enabling students to explain/describe how they partitioned their shape into halves, thirds, and fourths.  Additional problems should be created to meet the students’ needs.  By the end of Day 3, students will be able to partition shapes in halves, thirds, and fourths.

7. Day 4  Essential Question: How can I split up a circle to model halves, thirds, and fourths?  The focus of Day 4 is similar to Day 3 except now students are partitioning circles.  Many students have difficulty dividing a circle into thirds.  Consider connecting learning to the clock. If a student draws a line from the center out to the 12, 8, & 4 respectively, it will result in the clock being split into thirds.  HOT : If we know each part is equal, how many minutes in each third? (20 minutes)  Connections can be continued to be made for halves (12 & 6) and fourths (12, 3,6, & 9).  Lesson Ideas:  Fraction Cookies Fraction Cookies  Portions of Making a Cake can be used to give students problem solving tasksMaking a Cake  By the end of Day 4, students can partition circles into halves, thirds, and fourths.

8. Enrich/Reteach/Intervention  Reteach:  What is a Quadrilateral? What is a Quadrilateral  Enrich:  How Many Squares? How Many Squares?  Tangrams could also be used to enrich students who have a strong command of this critical area. Tasks requiring students to create a square using all the pieces would be particularly challenging.