Trapezoids

10 min

Narrative

The purpose of this What Do You Know about Trapezoids? is for students to share what they know about and how they can represent trapezoids.

Launch

  • “What do you know about trapezoids?”
  • 1 minute: quiet think time
Teacher Instructions
  • Record responses.

Student Task

What do you know about trapezoids?

Sample Response

Sample responses:

  • Trapezoids are quadrilaterals.
  • The red pattern block is a trapezoid.
  • They have one pair of parallel sides.
  • I have heard someone call that shape a trapezoid. They have only one pair of parallel sides.
Activity Synthesis (Teacher Notes)
  • “Draw some examples of trapezoids.”
  • Invite a few students to share their trapezoids with the rest of the class.
  • “How do you know these are trapezoids?” (They have one pair of parallel sides or they have at least one pair of parallel sides.)
Standards
Building Toward
  • 5.G.3·Understand that attributes belonging to a category of two-dimensional figures also belong to all subcategories of that category. <em>For example, all rectangles have four right angles and squares are rectangles, so all squares have four right angles.</em>
  • 5.G.B.3·Understand that attributes belonging to a category of two-dimensional figures also belong to all subcategories of that category. <span>For example, all rectangles have four right angles and squares are rectangles, so all squares have four right angles.</span>

20 min

15 min