Lesson 8

In a previous lesson, students made sense of how objects were sorted. Students made oral statements about how many objects were in each category. In this lesson, students sort shapes into three categories. They name and describe their categories, including how many shapes are in each category. Students then create a visual representation of the number of shapes in each category in a way that makes sense to them. Students discuss that in order to make sure their representation can be understood by others, they need to label the categories and represent objects in an organized way (MP6).

Activity 1: Sort Shapes

• Create a set of shape cards from the blackline master for each group of 2.
• Have extra copies of the three-column table from a previous lesson available for students. 

• Have extra copies of the three-column table from a previous lesson available for students. 

• Display students’ representations of their shape sorts on tables or walls so they are easily seen as students walk around.

After the gallery walk and the discussion about what makes a representation easy to interpret, what representations do you anticipate students making for data they collect in the next lesson? Why do you think they will choose these representations?