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Flat Shapes
Available Fall 2026
Students explore flat shapes by describing, sorting, comparing, creating, and composing. They identify shapes in their world, describe their attributes and positions, count and compare quantities, and build foundations of geometric reasoning.
Math
Unit 4
Kindergarten
Unit Summary
In Unit 4, students build foundational geometric thinking by exploring, describing, sorting, comparing, creating, and composing flat shapes. Students explore shapes through their own ideas, experiences, and creativity, discovering that mathematics, and the classroom math community, values and celebrates many ways to notice, represent, and make sense of the world around them.
Building on the work of Unit 3, students use familiar attributes to describe and sort flat shapes. They identify shapes in real-world objects and pictures, describe their relative positions, and begin to develop increasingly precise mathematical language for describing their world and the shapes all around them. Students then compare shapes, create them using a variety of materials, and compose larger shapes from smaller ones.
Students apply new and existing geometric thinking in meaningful and creative ways as they design a space for their community using flat shapes and create artwork inspired by diverse artists as well as their own backgrounds and experiences. Through these explorations, students use appropriate tools strategically MP.5 Use appropriate tools strategically. and attend to precision MP.6 Attend to precision. as they make, describe, and revise their designs and artistic creations.
While the geometry standards are considered supporting and additional work in Kindergarten, the learning in Unit 4 is crucial to build foundations for geometric reasoning that students will develop throughout the elementary grades and beyond. In addition, students continue with the major work of Kindergarten by counting and comparing collections of shapes, connecting the number sense developed in earlier units to meaningful geometric contexts.
Unit Prep
Lesson Map
Common Core Standards
Key
Major Cluster
Supporting Cluster
Additional Cluster
Standards for Mathematical Practice
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CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP1 — Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
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CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP2 — Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
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CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP3 — Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
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CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP4 — Model with mathematics.
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CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP5 — Use appropriate tools strategically.
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CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP6 — Attend to precision.
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CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP7 — Look for and make use of structure.
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CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP8 — Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
