Making Shapes with Resistance Bands

If you’ve ever gotten a good workout with resistance bands, you know how much it engages your muscles! Making shapes with resistance bands not only provides gross motor movement opportunities but also engages the sensory receptors in muscles. Children enjoy collaborating in small groups with a band or work individually to create as many shapes as they can imagine!

Materials:

• Resistance band – TheraBand is a popular brand, and based on our experience, the yellow color band offers the appropriate resistance for young children. A 6-yard roll can be made into two loops of appropriate lengths.
• Paper and drawing utencils
• Camera (or smart phone, tablet) for taking photos

Instructions:

Launch in whole group:

1. Start with a discussion about what the children know about shapes to activate prior knowledge.
2. Introduce Theraband: “It’s stretchy and some people use it for exercise, but we are going to use it to make shapes.” Then you demonstrate making a triangle and ask: “What shape is this? How many points?
   And how many sides?” You can ask for a volunteer come up to point while everyone counts.
3. Demonstrate a four-sided shape, ask for a volunteer to come up to point, and ask: “How many points? And how many sides? Then ask: “Does this shape have a name? What is it?” (Note that the children might not be familiar with the names of four-sided shapes other than rectangle and square)
4. Ask for a volunteer to come up and make a shape. Ask for another volunteer to come up to point while everyone counts the number of points and sides. Repeat once or twice.
5. “In small groups, you will get a turn to make a shape, and your friends in the small group will draw the shape. You can make 3 sided shapes, 4 sided shapes, and for a challenge, see if you can make 5 sided shapes, 6 sided shapes, and more.” 

Explore in small group (2 to 3 children work well): 

1. As the person pulling and making the shape it is hard to see the shape. Working in pairs or trios allows students to take turns tracing the sides and counting the corners of each other’s shapes. This small-group work promotes the use of math vocabulary and facilitates rich math talk!
2. Give the children a chance to explore the Theraband and make any shape they like. They could work individually or collaboratively. As shapes are being formed, observe and comment: “I see A is making a shape with both his hands and both his feet. It has 4 sides!” “I see B, C and D are working together and making a big shape with 3 sides.” 
   • Keep an eye on how taut the Theraband is being pulled, so that it doesn’t snap back and hurt someone.
3. Ask the children to take turns sharing the shapes made. While some children present a shape, others comment and draw what they see.  
   • Drawing irregular shapes can be quite a challenge for young children. Guide them by asking: How many sides does this shape have? Which side would you start on? Is it long or short? Which direction is the next side going?
   • Holding still in a shape for others to draw can also be challenging for young children. If so, take photos in the moment so that the observers can draw later.
4. Pose the challenge: “How can we make 5-sided shapes? How about 6-sided shapes or more?”

Share and discuss in whole group:

1. Share photos or drawings of shapes created in the small groups.
2. Together, sort all the shapes. Ask children to justify why they put a shape in a category, so that they have to explain geometric properties (number of sides and points, right angles, parallel sides, sides with equal lengths, etc.).
3. Some questions that might arise (or you might raise as a teacher):
   • Is every shape with 3 sides and 3 points called a triangle, no matter what? 
   • How are these rectangles similar or different to one another?
   • How are these squares similar or different to one another?
   • How about all these shapes that have 4 sides and 4 points? How are they similar or different to one another?
   • What about shapes that have no names?

Modifications:

Here are some ideas for follow-up activities and discussion questions.

1. Shape Shifters: 
   • “Make a shape, then stretch your arms. What happens? How about if you raise one leg? Stand with your legs further apart?”
   • “Make a shape. Now can you make the same shape but smaller? Larger?”
   • “Can you turn a 3-sided shape into a 4-sided shape? 5-sided shape?”
   • Key concept discussion: “How does it feel in your body to change your shape? Does the Theraband feel tight/loose? Did you have to use your muscle more?”
2. Shape Cards
   • Create about 8-12 shape cards, include pattern block shapes, but also triangles of different sides, different four-sided shapes, five-sided shapes, etc.
   • You could also include cards with the numbers 3, 4, 5, 6 to indicate the sides/points of shape to be made.
   • Children take turns to draw a card and make the shape. They can do it by themselves or ask friends to do it together.  
   • Key concept discussion: “It’s hard work to make sure your Theraband shape looks exactly like the one on the card. How did you do it?”
3. Finding shapes within shapes
   • In the Theraband photos, there are shapes within shapes to be found. For example, within a rectangle made by arms and legs stretched out as an X, there are 4 triangles. Discuss this in the whole group, while marking the shapes on the smartboard.
   • Provide children with printouts of photos to find shape within shapes.
   • Key discussion: “What are the small shapes that fit within the big shape?” “How many [name of small shapes]?”