When teaching about 3D Shapes, the fun never ends! From my first year of teaching to now, I've realized that students love geometry and shapes. I think that this is because they enjoy creating and/or playing with actual shape models and it is a topic that is more concrete and tangible than most of the other abstract topics in math. In my class, my 3D shape center has more games and activities than other centers (because of the versatility of the topic). My students love them. Check out my pictures below.
These are the recycled cardboard boxes like cereal boxes and other small boxes (except the sphere) that are covered in colored duct tape. The cylinders are from old tissue paper rolls and aluminium foil rolls (never throw them away!) The cone was the trickiest. It's best to actually use make it from scratch - with the net of a cone. However, I wanted this to be durable so I bought a Styrofoam cone from a craft store. I don't know why these are sold with the tips cut off (truncated cones) so I wrapped it with a sheet of cardstock around the tip to give it a long defined tip, taped it down, then covered everything with the duct tape.
These are tiny dowel sticks that came with a set of wooden connector for building things. I use them to make cubes and I also use them for model making in science when we are designing different types of structures.
Real world examples of 3D shapes are good choices for hands-on exploration. This drum (a craft project) is also a cylinder.
Don't forget the nets! Get free templates here.
Shapes all around the room - large 3D shape mobile!
Assorted shapes for sorting by attributes. For the paper models, click on the pictures to download a free template that you can use to make these 3D shapes for your students or to have older students make them as an activity. Just print the templates on different colors of cardstock paper.
Here's an activity I use to help with the sorting of attributes of solids. There are a range of attributes to sort them by, you just choose the ones you want using printable Venn diagram circles that are looped to show similarities and differences between any two shapes.