This Week in Math: 3-Dimensional Shapes

This week in math we have been learning 3-dimensional shapes. Our mathematicians explored both 2-D and 3-D shapes (manipulatives) and compared them. They noticed that 2-D shapes are flat, usually shown on paper and on a computer screen, whereas 3-D shapes "pop up" and reminded them of 3-D movies where the pictures aren't flat but they pop-up right at you. Later, we made a chart to help keep count of the number of faces, edges, and vertices for each of the 3-D shape studied. We examined prisms, pyramids and sphere today. Looking back at our 2-D shapes chart, we noticed that 3-D shapes have another attribute called "face", is a flat surface. We also noticed that because 3-D shapes "pop up", there are more edges and vertices than 2-D shapes. For example, a square has 4 sides (edges) and 4 vertices, but a cube has 6 faces, 12 edges, and 8 vertices. We will continue to explore 3-D shapes in the next couple days.

Question of the day: How many face(s), edge(s), and/or vertices (vertex) does a sphere have?