Shapes

Dramatic Play

Pizza Restaurant







I have play doh to make the pizza crust, or also felt pizzas. I have shredded paper cheese, plus topping shapes cut out of foamies. They can make the pizza, work the register, or be a customer. They were awesome! Such great play went on here all 2 weeks! They loved the order forms and making and delivering pizzas, plus scanning the credit cards. They were even great at cleaning up, and sorting the toppings to where they go. I was so impressed.

Blocks

Bowling, see above pic

Magnatiles for 2 days


Shape puzzles




Art

Shape stickers

Shapes and glue


Shape stamping with paint


Play doh with shape cookie cutters and blocks to stamp shapes. We also mixed the colors of the play doh, which was a great review of last week.

Small Manipulatives

Gears


Shape lacing cards


Shape puzzles




Shape dry erase boards


Shape magnets


Writing

Big shape stencils


Shape stamps

Texture markers

Small shape stencils


Snack

Each day we ate a different shape, depending on which shape we'd be learning at large group.

Circle muffins with circle chocolate chips (thanks to one of our friends!)
Square cheese crackers
Rectangle graham crackers
Triangle pita crackers

Outside

The sensory table had red beans and scoops and bowls


Large Group

We learned new songs; Jake the Snake, Shape-a-Loo, and I Spy a Shape

Our word changed each day, depending on which shape we learned; circle, square, rectangle, triangle

Day 1, we read Shapes, added circles to our wall, found circles around the room, and matched shapes to our shape train on the wall.


Day 2, we read What is Square? and found squares around the room, and added squares to our wall. We sorted buttons by shape.


Day 3, we read Bear in a Square, added rectangles to the wall, and found rectangles around the room. We used pointers and played I Spy a Shape by searching for and tracing shapes around the room.

Day 4, We read Wing on a Flea, found triangles around the room and added triangles to the wall. Then we played shape and color bingo.

Small Group

Week 1, My group made shapes out of wikki stix.
The other group used tweezers to place pom poms on these shape mats.


Week 2, My group played shape dominoes.

The other group practiced sorting buttons by color and then shapes.

Pumpkins

This week started out amazing with a field trip! Pack's Farm was perfect for our group. We had great warmish weather for October, so that was nice too! First, we got to have a lesson on pumpkins from Mr. Pack, or Old MacDonald as some in our class believed, which he liked :) He read us a book that perfectly explained the life cycle of a pumpkin, then told us all about how he plants his pumpkins. He had pumpkins and gourds of every variety for us to see and he told us about them. Then he carved a pumpkin to show the kids. He was so fast, and showed us how much easier it is to cut out the bottom than the top and deal with a lid! This was life-changing at our house and we carved that way this year and it worked wonderfully! Afterwards, we headed out to play. We did the hay maze a few times, then went off to the play area. They had big slides, a corn box, a pump game with rubber duckies and water, a tire playground, and big tunnels the kids could run in together. They had a great time! After they were done, we ate a quick snack, then each picked a pumpkin. It was a great way to start off our week learning about pumpkins, because it introduced how they're grown, plus they got to visit a real pumpkin patch before coming back to school and playing in one here.

Dramatic Play
Pumpkin Patch


Blocks
Another kid request. Some were disappointed I didn't have leaves to rake during apple orchard week, so they came out now. There were also blocks and puzzles on the shelves all week that were used each day, in addition to raking leaves.
 

Art
Pumpkin Slime-I just mixed pumpkin guts with the typical slime recipe, glue and water with borax, and we got ooey gooey pumpkin slime. They all tried it, but some didn't love the texture and watched from a distance. Others were so into it!


Because they didn't all appreciate the yuckiness, I also added some paper and fall foam stickers as an alternative at the art table.


We made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, then painted with orange paint. Minor frustration. I have gallons of paint from Wal-Mart, and others from Lakeshore, and my Lakeshore ones are coming apart! The orange gallon has turned yellow, so I tried shaking and shaking and it's this nasty dull yellowish red, not orange at all. I've barely had it a year, and it's so frustrating! Long story short, I'll never buy the more expensive Lakeshore paint again.

Beads. It had nothing to do with pumpkins, but my original plan was more paint, and we've been doing a lot of that and we needed a change of pace, so I got out beads and string!  


Small Manipulatives

Pumpkin do-a-dot pages and flat marbles and orange pom poms


Pumpkin lacing cards


Pumpkin shape matching

All of these are from tot-schooling.

Writing

Lots of pumpkin and Halloween stickers and stencils

 

Snack
We made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

Outside

Sensory table: kinetic sand with little pumpkins and acorns


Large Group
We learned the song 5 Little Pumpkins this week

Day 1, field trip

Day 2, we compared our pumpkins. We measured them and weighed them. Then we also reviewed our 5 senses by using them to learn about pumpkins.


Day 3, we made a gate for our 5 little pumpkins. It was challenging, because I wanted them all to work together, and that can be hard, but they did it! The only guidance I offered was it had to fit all 5 pumpkins. So when it was tall at first, I came to add the pumpkins, and it could only fit 1. So I asked them how to fit more, and they had to figure out to make it wider, instead of taller. And as 3 separate kids started their own gates, I would add a pumpkin and let them figure out it couldn't fit 5 without working with the other kids. It took awhile, but they eventually got it. They also liked adding random small blocks, and they saw as I placed the pumpkins, that those weren't very stable. I was proud of how they got it all worked out.


Day 4, We read Spookley the Square Pumpkin and then used play dough and they each got to make their own pumpkins. Like above, I gave very little guidance, I want them to figure it out. They got to choose their shape and figure out how to make it come to life.

Small Group

We did pumpkin seed counting.

We did a file folder game from tot-schooling putting pumpkins with letters in ABC order.

We did another worksheet for more cutting practice. They cut the pumpkins out and matched the faces. I really focused with them on holding scissors correctly, and I think we'll be doing a lot more of this to get them kinder ready.


Miss Kim played a matching counting game, and they did a number dot to dot.

Shapes Shapes Shapes!

I say this every time, but I love this theme! I forget how many fun shape activities I have until I start planning, then I regretted I only had 4 days to get them all in! Here's some of what we did:

Dramatic Play

Pizza Restaurant


 



















 

The kids had A LOT of fun in this center! We had to work a lot on sharing and taking turns, as they all wanted to be the chefs and cashier. They used play dough and toppings to make their pizzas, then I let them "bake" them in the stove. Not sure why I didn't think of that last year. It was a huge hit! They'd set the timer and everything. Dramatic Play is my favorite center to observe, since they have the best conversations.
We also learned cleaning up and sorting by putting toppings away where they go. We did a lot of numbers and counting, plus there is literacy everywhere in this center with labels and orders.
As usual, it was super busy and crowded the first 2 days, but by day 3 and 4 they didn't play here as much. That's why I have to change it each theme.

Art

Day 1, we made pictures with foamie shapes and glue.

Day 2, we painted with shape stamps.

Day 3, we used paint dab markers to make circles. Here's my toddler demonstrating:

Day 4, we used the art table to make our pizzas for snack. What a huge hit! I didn't get pictures, but their pizzas were beautiful. We used greek pitas for our crust, then added the sauce, cheese, and toppings of their choice. It was fun after playing in the pizza restaurant for 2 weeks, to finally get to make real pizza. They even got to help me cut olives with a real knife and they loved having that responsibility. After they were done, most ran straight to the pizza restaurant to keep making more pizzas! We had the wikki stix at the art table with the shape mats after we made the snack.


Blocks

Day 1, I had bowling set up. We learned a lot about patience and taking turns, plus helping each other as they had to set up the pins. There was some great cooperation happening.

Day 2, were foam shape and number puzzles.

I loved these especially as we cleaned up and we were looking for and labeling specific shapes, plus counting and matching that to the numbers.

Day 3, we had the magnet tiles. These are definitely the kids' favorite block!!

p.s. These are super expensive, so if you ever want some, I highly recommend Zulily. I got a set of 100 for $19!!! Not even kidding. They are one of the very favorite toys at our house, so they're worth the money, but I love a bargain.

Day 4, we played with the small wood blocks.


Small Manips

We had different shape puzzles and games all week.










I've also added a magnet wall in this area, so we had shape magnets too. They love the pattern blocks.





Writing

I added shape stencils to the writing center.


Large Group

Day 1, We focused on circles, and after reading about shapes and learning our new shape songs, we played with the shape mats and pom pom balls pictured above.

Day 2, We focused on squares, and matched shapes on this Learning Shapes Train. It stayed out the next days for them to add and remove shapes.



Day 3, We focused on rectangles, and made these shape pizzas. On the back, I wrote how many of each shape after they helped me count. They were all correct, but some added more shapes after we counted, if you noticed their numbers were off.

Day 4, We focused on triangles. We played shape bingo and it was a huge hit!

Small Group

Week 1, my group worked on making patterns with shapes. They are doing great at copying and extending patterns!
Miss Kim's group used wikki stix to make different shapes, and turn those shapes into things.

Week 2, my group sorted shape magnets into shapes and colors. We also graphed them.

Miss Kim's group stamped blocks into play doh to make shape prints.

We added some fun songs this theme too.
Jake the Snake (I use a folder with pictures of the snake making different shapes)
     I'm Jake the Snake, I'm a happy snake,
     I'm a magical guy, I can change my shape!

2 are from Dr. Jean's Totally Math cd:

Shape a loo by Dr. Jean

I Spy a Shape by Dr. Jean

I love that those two songs are so active! They love searching for shapes in the I Spy one, and dancing and waving their shapes around in Shape a Loo.