Lesson 6

Compose and Decompose Shapes

Lesson Purpose

The purpose of this lesson is for students to compose shapes and to recognize shapes that are made up of equal-size shapes.

Lesson Narrative

In previous grades, students learned that shapes can be made up of other shapes. In previous lessons, students identified shapes based on the number of sides and corners and drew shapes having specific attributes.

In this lesson, students continue to practice identifying shapes based on their attributes using the vocabulary from previous lessons. They also extend their understanding of the attributes of shapes by considering how a shape may be composed of other shapes. In particular, this lesson focuses on composing a shape from the same equal-size shape. This lesson prepares students for partitioning shapes into equal-size pieces and naming equal-size pieces in upcoming lessons.

  • Representation
  • MLR8

Learning Goals

Teacher Facing

  • Compose new shapes from equal-size smaller shapes, and identify the shapes.

Student Facing

  • Let’s make shapes with equal-size smaller shapes.

Required Materials

Materials to Gather

Materials to Copy

  • Compose a Butterfly
  • Centimeter Dot Paper - Standard
  • Isometric Dot Paper - Standard

Required Preparation

CCSS Standards

Building On

Addressing

Building Towards

Lesson Timeline

Warm-up 10 min
Activity 1 15 min
Activity 2 20 min
Lesson Synthesis 10 min
Cool-down 5 min

Teacher Reflection Questions

In the first section, students spent time describing and drawing shapes with given attributes. How did this work help prepare them for composing and decomposing shapes in this lesson?

Suggested Centers

  • How Are They the Same? (1–5), Stage 2: Grade 2 Shapes (Addressing)
  • Which One? (K–5), Stage 3: Grade 2 Shapes (Addressing)

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Teacher Presentation Materials pdf docx
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