Children are introduced to angle in Year 3 and that the size of an angle describes an amount of turn. Right angles are seen as a quarter turn, and that 2 right angles will make a half turn and 4 right angles will make a full turn. Acute and obtuse angles are also introduced.

The properties of 2D and 3D shapes are still an important part of shape for Year 3. Children need to spend time handling 3D shapes and should be familiar with the terms ‘edge’, ‘face’ and ‘vertex’ (plural: ‘vertices’) when applied to 3D shapes.

A range of boxes used for packaging such as chocolate boxes, tissue boxes etc, may be opened to see the nets used to construct them. (A net is the 2D shape that must be cut out and folded to make a 3D shape.)

Children should make 3D shapes from suitable materials such as straws and pipe cleaners or kits designed for the purpose.

In this way, they will be able to see how many of each 2D shape are needed as faces for a 3D shape e.g. six squares are needed to make a cube; a square and four isosceles triangles are needed to make a square based pyramid etc.

Many shapes can be made from cubes. Cubes that join together are helpful here, but non-joining cubes are very useful too.

An important part of year 3 work is to begin to use a ruler to measure lines.