We generally notice different shapes from an early age, even if we don’t yet know that the shapes have some specific names. It takes longer for us at that age to acquire knowledge on particular properties of shapes, such as how the shape looks like, how many sides does a shape contains, identifying whether it is a plane figure or solid figure. Doing lots of exercises with shapes assists us to solidify our understanding of two-dimensional structures. Though it is necessary to learn about 2d shapes, solid shapes fascinate us in many maths areas of learning.
A solid shape is individual in perception because the 3D or solid shape is the only optical property with sufficient complexity to accurately identify objects. We can easily recognise essential things such as a box, prism, car, chair, or ball based on their shapes alone in our everyday lives. As we know, a 3D shape or solid shape is any shape that contains a specific width, height, and depth; therefore, it may contain a certain volume. It may not look especially deep as in the real world. How much ever thin is an object, we can measure something in each of these three dimensions.
Everyone knows that we live in a three-dimensional world where every one of us has a certain height, width, and length. Solid shapes also exist around us, such as beach balls, game dice, cuboids, pyramids, cylinders, traffic cones, and all of those are solid shapes. Learning these solid shapes helps children recognise and build visual information and help students learn skills in other areas. These areas include reading, maths and science, where pupils are required to process the shape and scale of information. Children need to learn about solid shapes in geometry from an early age, i.e. first grade onwards. Learning these solid shapes encourages children to identify and organise visual learning, which will help pupils acquire skills in distinct areas.
It is easy to identify the solid shapes around us and can be given names according to their appearance. For example, a matchbox looks like a cuboid or rectangular prism. Rubik’s cube is an example of the cube, and a gas cylinder, candle, water tank, etc., are examples of a right circular cylinder in geometry. Similarly, a Toblerone is in the shape of a triangular prism. Cricket balls, marbles, oranges, etc., are examples of a solid shape called a sphere. This way, we can name many objects around us based on the surface of things.
Apart from the above specified solid shapes, we do have other shapes, namely pyramids, hemispheres, cones, etc. All solid shapes can be observed around us in our daily existence, and we may not notice the shape or name of those objects at a time. Thus, getting knowledge about solid shapes is useful not only for identifying the objects but also to get excellence in other areas such as the construction field. In the construction field, the knowledge of solid shapes is very much essential since this will help to design the construction and make proper instructions.
