Geometry, Books and Second Grade

We have been looking for more ways to connect what we are doing in the library and technology time with what is happening the classrooms. The second grade classrooms were working on their geometry units in the classroom and we thought this would be a good way to introduce a great book, the Skitch app and the 3D printing software Tinkercad.

We started the project reading the awesome books City Shapes by Diana Murray. In the story a young girl walks through the city while a pigeon flies above both seeing shapes in the everyday sights of the city. We talked about and pointed out all the shapes we saw in the illustrations in the book.

Next we introduced the app Skitch that allows you to take a photograph and then draw on the picture and add text to the pictures. Students were paired up and went on a design hunt around the library. The goal was to find everyday objects in the library that were made up of the 3D shapes that they were learning about in their math lessons.

Then we introduced the students to the 3D design software Tinkercad. The program is a free website and a great introduction for students to designing with 3D objects. Students again worked in pairs to design everyday objects with 3D shapes.

The final step was to print their designs on the library 3D printers. The second grade teachers now have the designs in their classrooms and have them as examples of 3D shapes to use in future lessons!