Identify Triangles and Quadrilaterals

I'll be honest...when I teach triangles and quadrilaterals it is usually towards the end of the year, right at the beginning of state testing season. I feel in the past I haven't taught it as well as I could have and I wanted to make a point to do better this year. I always felt rushed to teach this standard and I felt like it was an easy one. However my scores in this standard have always been lower that what I expected. I attribute this to my speed in teaching it and knowing that it isn't a power standard on state testing.
I was determined to do better this year teaching this standard and I feel like I succeeded as my percentage for proficiency for this standard was in the 70's when in the past it's been in the low 60's! Reflecting on the school year there are a few things that I felt helped!

• Figure out at the beginning of the year what students already know about theses shapes
• Determine any misconception and take note of them for future teaching
• Create and anchor chart and keep it up for WEEKS!!!!
• SPIRAL REVIEW SPIRAL REVIEW SPIRAL REVIEW!!!!
• Make the lesson as hands on as possible!

I created an anchor chart after review what they knew about angles and triangles and left it up for a long time. I did the same for quadrilaterals and made a "family tree" to represent the different quadrilaterals. The students really used it during workshop when I did spiral review activities. I felt that leaving the chart up allowed the students to use their resources instead of me having to keep teaching it. 

I swear by spiral reviewing EVERYTHING! I taught triangles and quadrilaterals at the beginning of the year this year and I was able to review it all the time. I would randomly throw in task cards, or a hands on activity in workshop to keep the information fresh in their mind. 

I tried to make this as hands on as possible as many times as I could. I WISH I had a set of geo boards, and I requested them for next year and pray we actually get them! There were a few other things I did to make it hands on! One that was really fun was the students had a "Guess Who..." worksheet where the shapes had a speech bubble with a characteristic and the students had to match the speech bubble to the shape. THEN the students got a sheet of construction paper and cut out a shape of their choice with a speech bubble with a characteristic that they came up with do describe that shape. The students drew faces on the shapes and got super in to it! They were adorable hung up around the room and in the hallway! 

(Click the link above to get the worksheet for FREE!)

Another activity I did was SUPER fun and interesting. I put the students in groups and gave each group a different color sticky note. I drew some shapes on the board and they had to write characteristics that described each shape. ONE characteristic per sticky note and they could put as many sticky notes up as possible! It was neat to see the students work together and used their observations to describe the shapes. They put things like, has perpendicular lines, has two pairs of parallel lines, has two lines of symmetry....etc! It was so fun! We had a good time seeing which sticky notes were the same and which color had the most on the board!  What a quick and EASY set up activity was AMAZING results! 

In workshop I utilized my task cards in review VERY often! I also used the coloring page had morning work some days and the extra worksheet as homework. One of my favorite ways to use the task cards is to tape them around the room and to have the students solve them on a clip board! Gets them up and moving which is always fun! 

I hope some of these ideas help you as you plan for the next school year! I will be sure to do the same this year as I got great results!! Share any other ideas with how YOU teach this standard!! I would LOOOVE more activities to implement!