So great to be back! Learning about shapes is so much fun! It's amazing what you can create with shapes, and there are many, many excellent books to help get your creative juices flowing.
Here's what we read today:
Bear in a Square by Stella Blackstone; Ills. by Debbie Harter
Shape Capers by Cathryn Falwell
Children don't just dream up cool pictures with shapes. Shapes can also help children learn the building blocks of letter recognition. Help your children notice how an "A" looks like a triangle, and an "O" like a circle, as well as finding other shapes within the letters of our alphabet :)
Bear in a Square is a multi-purpose book: Not only will you learn about shapes, but it's a counting book, and a seek-and-find book as well! The Blackstone/Harter duo have many fun, imaginative, and educational books - check them out some sometime!
Shape Capers was just one of the many books in our collection that has given me inspiration for creating art with shapes! Today our crafty toddlers and preschoolers made many sweet works, including a shapes-rocket, a shapes-helicopter, a shapes-taco, and more! Here a couple of examples:
Nice work guys!! We also had fun with the felt board after program, making scenes and objects out of the many shapes we played with today.
Here is another way we played today:
Shape Fun!
Put your shape on your heart, on your heart!
Put your shape on your heart, on your heart!
Put your shape on your heart, what a lovely way to start!
Put your shape on your heart, on your heart!
Put your shape on your knee…
…You’ll both be filled with glee…
Put your shape on your toes…
…Now move it to your nose…
Put your shape on your head…
…..Then put it straight to bed…
Give your shape a big hug…
…..Make it snug as a bug in a rug…
Can you think of any other places to put shapes? Maybe on your elbow?? ; )
We also moved with one of our popular storytime songs, converted for use with felt shapes:
We Wave Our Shapes
(Sing to the tune of For He's a Jolly Good Fellow)
We wave our shapes together
We wave our shapes together
We wave our shapes together
Because it's fun to do!
We wave them up HIGH!!
We wave them down L O W
We wave them in the middle...
Because it's fun to do!
We wave our shapes together
We wave our shapes together
We wave our shapes together
Because it's fun to do!
Use that base tune for many poems and themes! We use that song base to 'tap our sticks together' and 'wave our scarves together' as well ; )
The kids really got into the felt board today! I think it was because many of them were familiar with the book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Bill Martin Jr., and this rhyme has the same rhythm. BTW, some other storytimer came up with this awesome felt board, but I don't know who was the original artist, so can't I credit them. But all of us who found it online and have used it are very happy to have it to copy and share with kids!
Red Square, red square, what do you see?
I see an orange triangle looking at me!
Orange triangle, orange triangle, what do you see?
I see a blue diamond looking at me!
Blue Diamond, blue diamond, what do you see?
I see a green rectangle looking at me!
Green rectangle, green rectangle, what do you see?
I see a yellow star looking at me!
Yellow star, yellow star, what do you see?
I see a purple circle looking at me!
Purple circle, purple circle, what do you see?
I see lots of happy shapes looking at me!
Can you think of any shapes that we didn't mention in this blog post? (Here's a hint about one well known shape: A bird lays an______? Can you guess what it is?)
Time to go for now! It was great to see everybody again, and welcome some new faces :)
See you next time,
Miss Kelly
