The purpose of this activity is for students to recognize shapes in different pieces of artwork from around the world. Before beginning the activity, consider using a map to show students the country from which each piece originates. Students recognize shapes in each piece and discuss in the Activity Synthesis how they are alike and different. Students may notice that some artists put shapes together to create designs, while others use shapes to compose things we may recognize such as people, animals, and buildings. Consider creating a cue or signal to indicate when students should move from one drawing to the next.

• Display each picture.
• “How are the pictures alike? How are they different?” (They all put small shapes together to make larger shapes. Some are just designs and some have people.)
• “Artists from all different parts of the world use shapes to create their art.”

The purpose of this activity is for students to put shapes together to form larger shapes. Students create their own piece of artwork by drawing or cutting out and putting together shapes. Students may use inspiration from the art they looked at in the first activity. Students may create designs or pictures of recognizable objects. Students may cut out their own shapes from construction paper, magazines, or other scraps. If available, some shapes that have already been cut out can be provided for students.

When students recognize mathematical features of objects in the real world, they model with mathematics (MP4).

• Display student work on tables or desks.
• “Now we will do a Gallery Walk to see the art we made using shapes.”
• 5 minutes: Gallery Walk

The purpose of this activity is for students to choose from activities that offer practice with building shapes and putting them together to form larger shapes.

Students choose from any stage of previously introduced centers:

• Match Mine
• Geoblocks
• Build Shapes
• Pattern Blocks
• Fewer, Same, More

• “What if I want to use a yellow hexagon pattern block in my puzzle and my partner has used all the yellow hexagon pattern blocks? What could I do?"