Dear Parents,
We have been doing some work on shape, 2d and 3d. It would really help if you could talk to your child about the shapes around them and use the correct mathematical language. Some ideas are to look at the outside of the house and find regular 2d shapes, square, rectangle, circle etc. Talk about how many sides and corners it has and also what it could not be because it has 4 corners etc.
Show/draw a 2d shape and turn it so it is ‘upside down’. Discuss how it is still the same.
Go for a shape walk in the garden, bedroom etc. Look at grates/drains (safely!) and the patterns. How many rectangles etc might the grate be made up of? Can they estimate?
Look in the cupboards/fridge and find 3d shapes. Tins or containers that are cylinders, boxes that are cuboids or cubes. Toblerone is a good one for a prism! Discuss the properties of the shapes, how many faces it has, edges etc. Discuss if we were to cut through it how, in some cases, the shape would be repeated. In Reception and Year 1 we are only looking at the common shapes, not really the irregular shapes.
Any work you do in addition will help your child. If you would like to discuss this or anything else further, please come and see us.
Thank you again for your support.
