Recognise Spheres and Pyramids

This activity is about 3D shapes.  

 

We need to learn their names and spellings. Here, we will look at how to work out which shape is which. 

 

We are going to focus on the 3D shapes of spheres and pyramids. 

 

Here, we have a sphere.

 

  

 

We can recognise a sphere because it is a 3D circle. 

 

A sphere has just one face, it has no vertices and no edges! 

Let's have a look at what this means. 

 

A face is each flat part - the sphere just has one face covering the whole shape.

The edges are the parts where the faces join together - if there is only one face then there are no edges as there is nothing to join together! 

Vertices are corners - there are no corners on a sphere. 

 

 

Next, we have pyramids. 

 

Here, we have a pyramid. 

 

    

 

We can recognise a pyramid because it is a 3D triangle. 

 

It has 5 faces, 5 vertices (corners), and 8 edges. 

 

The faces are triangle-shaped and this shape has a square at the bottom of the shape. 

This type of pyramid is called a square-based pyramid. 

 

  

 

This is the most common pyramid, but sometimes a triangular-based one exists.

This shape is the same but it has a triangle at the bottom of the shape. 

 

Shall we have a go at some questions now?