Students will work hard to build shapes with straws in this hands-on lesson about the defining attributes of triangles. Use alone or with **Know Your Shapes.**
This lesson can be used as a pre-lesson for the Know Your Shapes! lesson plan.
Objectives
Academic
Students will be able to build triangles that have three straight sides and three corners.
Language
Students will compare and describe different triangles with content-specific vocabulary using sentence frame, visual and peer support.
Introduction
(5 minutes)
Call students to the rug, and instruct them to form a triangle with their fingers by joining pointer fingers and thumbs. Tell them to repeat after you, "Triangle."
Ask students to call out other shapes that they know, for example squares, circles and rectangles. Let them know that today they will think about what makes a triangle the same as and different from other shapes.