Teaching shapes can be integrated in many ways, as indicated above. It's important for students to develop an understanding of shapes including defining characteristics, accurate definitions, and accurate vocabulary for the characteristics and shapes. Word walls with visuals can be incredibly helpful for students. Tactile activities are essential, as well, for students to explore the shapes. Pattern blocks are a great tool (and can be overlapped with fraction concepts in second grade and higher), tangrams provide a fun way to explore shapes, as are any physical three-dimensional and two-dimensional shapes. Linking cubes can be helpful with creating and exploring three-dimensional shapes. Understanding the types of shapes and their definitions provide a foundation for applying other geometry concepts, such as geometric formulas.

Sorting shapes can be a great way for students to explore characteristics of shapes. Students can sort based on similarities and differences, on identified characteristics, or other features. Ask students to explain how they chose to sort the shapes as the explanation can provide insight into students' understanding and knowledge of the shapes and their characteristics. Shapes can also be a great topic for cross-curricular activities with art class. Exploring patterns with shapes through tessellations can be a fun way to apply geometry concepts. Another activity is to send students on a scavenger hunt around the classroom, the school, or at home to find and identify as many geometric shapes as they can. If students are to complete the scavenger hunt at home, be sure to notify parents/guardians of the activity.

Measurement concepts can be integrated into curriculum in a number of ways. An obvious cross-curricular connection is with science, particularly with experiments and measuring quantities. Measurement can also be integrated with computation as quantities of units are combined, subtracted, or divided, and they are also used with geometric formulas. Measurement can additionally be integrated with fractions as many measuring tools are divided into fractional units. I often use measuring tapes as a number line, particularly when teaching equivalent fractions and ordering of fractions (metric is in tenths; customary includes halves, quarters, eighths, sixteenths). Metric measurements can be integrated with lessons on power of ten, decimals, prefixes and related concepts, as the metric system is based on powers of ten.

Key concepts to emphasize with measurement are accuracy and precision. When teaching students to use measuring tools, such as rulers or yardsticks, emphasize the difference between starting at the end or edge of the tool and starting at zero. Also, it's important for students to understand that measurement tools have consistent units. For example, to measure the length of an object, the measurement can begin at zero or it can begin at any number on the ruler. It's the number of units that align with the length that is important. Measurement concepts are an explicit application of number, counting, and fraction concepts.