Kindergarten Math - Building Hexagons with other 2D Shapes

This week we are working on 2D shapes. We made it through the basic 4: square, circle, rectangle, and triangle and now we are moving on to tricky hexagons, trapezoids, and rhombi.

I started by introducing hexagons with this shape page. It is a freebie you can download on this post.

Hexagons have 6 Sides

If you would like to download it. Click here: HEXAGON DOWNLOAD. After a discussion on hexagons we came to the rug and began to build hexagons.

BUILDING HEXAGONS in Kindergarten

The children had a lot of fun. 

Building Hexagons

They worked with a partner since I only had enough shapes to prep 12 bags for 24 students to share. I would have had enough for 24 bags but those pesky little, green triangles ran out. Ah Well! It turned out great anyway. I'd say the hardest part was angling the triangles correctly enough to form half a hexagon. Once they cleared that hurdle it was easy. 

Building Hexagons

This recording sheet we used is below. I got it from the crisscrossapplesauce blog and it came in real handy. It was a freebie on her blog. Here is her link: (Hexagon FREEBIE) My kids loved it so much. I think I will run it off again and use it with the baggies as a math center for the rest of the week.

Making Hexagons with Pattern Blocks

At the end of this day's math session,  I announced that I was KIDNAPPING THE HEXAGONS from their beloved shapes puzzle basket. All that was left were the other 2D shapes: rhombus, square, trapezoid, and triangles.

Building Hexagons with other 2D shapes

This meant that kids had to memorize how to build hexagons using the three other ways we found to fill in their favorite puzzles. 

Replacing Hexagons with triangles, trapezoids, and rhombi

I heard a few gasps and then a little girl said, "but their not yellow!" I said, "That's okay. You can still replace the missing hexagons even if the shapes are different colors than what's on the mat."

The next day they did fine and I felt really proud of them. We wrapped up the next day by bring out the super fun pattern block stickers! We built hexagons in as many different ways as we could.

Here is another way we practice the characteristics of shapes. We used popsicle sticks on the rug.

I modeled how to make a few shapes on the rug and challenged the kids to name my shape. Then I projected shape clip art on my class' Promethean Board and passed out bundles of popsicle sticks in different colors. Each bundle had six sticks since we have been studying 2D shapes with no more than six sides. Once we all had out bundles we created the shapes I projected on the board one after the other. It was loads of fun!

Some kids had a hard time with the rhombus and hexagon. Rightfully so since those shapes are pretty tricky. The kids were very helpful when their neighbor was struggling to make a shape. We talked about the number of sides and vertices as well. We made different size triangles using either just three popsicle sticks or up to 6 to make each side longer. 

The only hard part was cleaning up the popsicle sticks. Most kids did not have the fine motor skills to tie the bunches back up. I recruited the help of girls with long hair to help me and the rest of the class tie up the bunhes. They usually know how to tie up their pony tails so tying up a small bunch of popsicle sticks was a piece of cake!