Review of Learning Resource's See Through 3D Geometric Shapes for STEAM Learning

Froot Loop loves his shapes. He was identifying and naming them very early. When I decided to introduce three dimensional shapes to him, I was looking for a set of geometric shapes that I could use to compare the 2D and 3D shapes (like the base of a cone is a circle, etc.), as well as compare volumes and be able to “build” with them too. I looked at tons of different sets and decided on these. 

I liked that there were more shapes (a small cube and a big cube, a small prism and a big prism) so we could compare sizes and work on comparative adjectives. I love that they are in bright colors and are see through so they can be used on a projector or light table to see what they look like in 2D. I also like how the base can come off so they can be filled with water, sand, etc. We can play with volumes this way. 

The set includes a 6 cm cube, a 3 cm cube, a 6 cm triangular prism, a 6 cm x 3 cm triangular prism, a 6 cm triangular pyramid, a 6 cm cylinder, a 6 cm x 3 cm cylinder, a 6 cm x 3 cm rectangular prism, a 3 cm x 3 cm x 6 cm rectangular prism, a 6 cm square pyramid, a 6 cm hemisphere, a 6 cm sphere, a 6 cm cone, and a 6 cm pentagonal prism.

I considered getting wood shapes, but I wanted to be able to actually fill the shapes with water, beads, etc. so we could compare and study volumes. Plus, you can’t see through wood shapes. However, wood shapes would have been better for him to play with and explore, as these plastic ones do have bases that pop off. We lost one of the bases for a couple weeks, which was kind of annoying.

Froot Loop loves to build “houses” with them. He likes to stack the cone on top of the cylinder to make a “circle house”, the triangle pyramid on top of the triangle prism to make a “triangle house”, and the square pyramid on top of the cube to make a “square house”. He also likes to put the hemisphere on top of the pentagonal prism to make a “pentagon house.” I do not let him play with them unsupervised since the last time I did that, he lost one of the bases and nearly broke the sphere trying to play with it as a ball. 

I asked him to sort these by shape, and he did a pretty good job! 

Then, he sorted by color. Again, great job!

It blew his mind when I put the hemisphere on top of the base of the cone. He yelled “ICE CREAM CONE!” Then he had to run and show Daddy and he wouldn’t give the pieces back to me for a long time. He pretended to eat ice cream for awhile. 

Then I pulled the base off of the cone and tried to put the sphere in it to make a different ice cream cone. That was a hit too.

These shapes will grow with the boys. I can introduce shapes to Cocoa Puff when he’s a little older and let him interact with them tangibly. I can keep working with Froot Loop on 3D shapes and volume and area, etc. I see all sorts of ways to use these awesome shapes as math tools. I actually got the idea from subbing a 7th grade math class for awhile. They were using these exact same shapes in their class working on volume equations and surface area. It would be easy to use these with some graduated cylinders to look at volume.

For now, Cocoa Puff just likes to look at them and hold them. 

So all in all, I recommend these 3D shapes for home learning, but not so much for playing. I’m very pleased with them and how versatile they are. They do have small pieces. The bases pop off and there's a tiny little "plug" to allow you to fill the shape with water or sand, and babies could choke on that. 

What shape is your house?