Shapes Shapes Shapes!

Here's some of the fun we had during shapes week!

Dramatic Play:
Pizza Restaurant


 
 Added literacy with job charts and signs for ordering. Also great math with this.

 Math and sorting. Pizza toppings made with shapes I cut out from foamie sheets. Each day at clean up, the kids had to sort them back into their right spots. It took time, but it's an important math skill!

 




 
We had a blast making pizza this week in DP! We had play dough and toppings so they could make their own, plus some plastic pizza pieces too. It was a hit all 4 days. They were so cute as workers dressed in their aprons and chef hats, and taking orders (always filling out the order forms and receipts) and serving each other. One day, 2 kids were working like crazy while the others stood in line to order and sat at the table waiting. The "workers" were running around like crazy taking orders and making pizzas and one said, "It's so hard to work at the Pizza Restaurant when it's so busy!" We recruited a few more workers and they got through the busy rush. This play was serious business. Check out these great pizzas:

I tried a new play dough recipe this week with baking soda and cornstarch. It was great the first day, but then got super sticky, so I went back to my go-to recipe I use all the time. I didn't get it here, but it's the same one I had from college and I know it works.
 

Blocks: 

The first week, we set up bowling. The kids loved the pizza restaurant and bowling alley together. One kid even planned his birthday party there and invited the others to come eat pizza and bowl. It was perfect.
 

Day 3, we had masking tape shapes on the ground and a basket of objects to sort by shape like this, and day 4, we had a giant foam number puzzle with shapes for each number.

Small Manipulatives:

We did several shape puzzles (large floor ones and small), played with pattern block and other shapes magnets to make pictures and patterns, and played shape dominoes.
 
We also used pom poms to make shapes. They loved this one!
 
Art:
Shape sponge painting
Q-tip art in small circles (the point was to use their fine motor skills to make dots, but they all just painted all over the pages).
Gluing foamie shapes to make pictures
 
Play dough with shape cookie cutters

Sensory Table:

We had 2 more days of rainbow rice since they loved it so much. Week 2, we had cloud dough, which is flour and baby oil mixed together. It was the perfect consistency for our ABC molds.

Writing:
Shape stamps (made putting stickers on milk carton lids) thanks pinterest
 
Shape tracing


Large Group:

Songs:
Jake the Snake is similar to Mitch the Fish and Scat the Cat, except Jake makes different shapes with his body. I have pictures of Jake wrapped around shapes in a folder, and they switch as we sing the song.

I'm Jake the Snake,
I'm happy and awake.
I'm a magical guy,
I can change my shape.

We also sang 2 songs from Dr. Jean's cd Totally Math, Shape a Loo and I Spy a Shape.
We danced and sang about shapes, and searched for them around the room as we sang.

Shape a Loo
Here we go shape a loo, here we go shape a lay, here we go shape a loo, all on a happy school day.
We put the triangles in, we take the triangles out, we give the triangles a shake shake shake, and turn them all about.
(repeat with other shapes)

I Spy a Shape
Do you spy a rectangle? A rectangle? A rectangle? Do you spy a rectangle, in the room?
Yes I found a rectangle.....
(repeat with other shapes)

We did a shape each day for 4 days (circle, square, rectangle, triangle) and hung pictures on our shape wall, then played I Spy a Shape and found them all over the room.
We read many great shape books too.

Small Group:

Thanks for your help with this one, parents! We made a book based on Brown Bear, Brown Bear, using shapes. With pre-cut shapes, the children made a different animal for each page. I still need to bind them and have a child who was absent finish theirs, then they'll be coming home. They look great and I'm excited for the kids to "read" them to you. They learned so much with this activity, and I was impressed listening to you moms helping and reviewing their shapes with them. The Kindergarten core wants the children to be able to use shapes to make a picture, and that's what we were teaching here.

Some great shape resources to keep teaching your kids at home:
Shape Play
Colors and Shapes
Name the Shapes
Big Bird's Shapes
Different Shapes
Creating with Shapes
Shape o Bots
and so many more once you find these, you'll see the rest!