Composite Shapes in the World

In the storyboard above, Derek travels all over his town and his home. On his travels, he finds many different objects that look suspiciously like cones, cubes, prisms, spheres, cylinders, and pyramids. Have students identify the object and geometric solid it resembles. Notice that some of the pictures show skeletal “solids” or are not true mathematical figures because of rounded edges or vertices. Examples are not perfect, but students can get an idea and recognize shapes and solids around them. Every picture has at least one solid that is easily recognized. There are also figures that are stacked, combined, or repeated. Have your students look very carefully!

Then, have students create their own storyboard where they or Derek travel to other places and see different geometric solids. Assign a certain number of composite shapes to each storyboard or each cell. Students may not recognize the pentagonal prism of the house, but may instead recognize a triangular prism on top of a rectangular prism. If there is an object that they want to include in their storyboard but cannot find, perhaps they can make it with different shapes and figures!