K.G.2 vs. 2.G.1

[Jim]

The requirements of these standards seem to overlap.

Cluster: “Identify and describe shapes (squares, circles, triangles, rectangles, hexagons, cubes, cones, cylinders, and spheres).”

K.G.2 “Correctly name shapes regardless of their orientations or overall size.”

and

2.G.1 “Recognize and draw shapes having specified attributes, such as a given number of angles or a given number of equal faces. Identify triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, hexagons, and cubes.”

My question is this: Why does 2.G.1 say “Identify triangles […] hexagons, and cubes” when identification of these three shapes falls under the Kindergarten standards?

[Bill McCallum]

The first couple of pages of the geometry progression might help give some context here. In particular, this paragraph:

Thus, learning geometry cannot progress in the same way as learning number, where the size of the numbers is gradually increased and new kinds of numbers are considered later. In learning about shapes, it is important to vary the examples in many ways so that students do not learn limited concepts that they must later unlearn. From Kindergarten on, students experience all of the properties of shapes that they will study in Grades K–7, recognizing and working with these properties in increasingly sophisticated ways.

In particular, the uptick from Kindergarten to Grade 2 in the standards you refer to is more in the way that students perceive these shapes than in the shapes being presented. In Grade 2 the emphasis is on recognizing shapes in terms of their attributes rather than simply being able to name them. Thus a second grader is expected to be able to say “this is a triangle because it has three angles,” whereas a kindergartener is expected simply to name the triangle.

[Author]

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