Explore shapes with a fun and interactive game!
We recently began our unit on shapes. To introduce this our shape unit we played a fun and colorful game…
Introducing a Story
We like to begin most lessons with a story that can help us make connections as we learn. We chose the newly published book “Hearts are for Loving” by Niki Alling to help us introduce our lesson on shapes…
This book is filled with simple text and illustrations of all the basic shapes and ending with a heart…
Expanding on the Story
After reading our book, we brought out our magnet board, filled with foam shapes. There were triangles, squares, rectangles, and circles. Over the next few weeks, we will be focusing on all of these basic shapes. We will wrap up our unit on shapes with hearts for Valentine’s day…
Beginning our Shape Hunt
To begin our shape hunt, we went back through our book to see what shapes we could find on the pages. When the children found a shape in our book, the hunt was on to find a similar shape on our board…
We continued playing our game as we went back through each page of the book to see what shapes the children should look for next…
Creating with Shapes
After we finished finding our shapes, the children were invited to come up with their own creations like we saw in our book…
And then the children were off to explore our centers which we will share more about that with you soon!
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I love you HUGE tray! What is it? Where can I get one?
Hi Jane,
This tray is a metal grease pan that I painted and usually use as a magnet board. I bought at Walmart for $10.
Dear Deborah,
Thank you so much for sharing, Hearts Are For Loving, with your class! The students seem very engaged by the activity you created around the book. I’m so glad you are all enjoying it! Thank you for sharing it on your site, it’s an honor.
Sincerely,
Niki Alling
This is brilliant idea even for my two and a half years old toddler. I always look for new activities for him to keep him busy as he gets bored and irritated due to lack of company. This activity is simple n it does not need lots of resources.
I think this is one of the best activity to do for preschool kids. It is nice to find shapes as they read the book. Will try to find the materials locally and find a similar book so I could also do this to my kids. Thank you for sharing.
loved that you shared my sister’s book. I fine that every child I give one to really enjoy and to start playing the what book is teaching especially the building blocks.
Hi Deborah,
Thank you for always sharing your wonderful ideas. What age were your students? Do you think 4 year olds are an appropriate age for this activity?
Thanks again,
Kelley
We have children ages 3-5, Kelley! So, I say give it a try! 🙂
[…] https://teachpreschool.org/2014/01/17/hunting-for-shapes/ […]
Did the foam shapes stay on the board
As long as the foam is damp, it will stick.
Should you wet these right before I teach the lesson?
Hi Maggie! For the lesson, I set the tray flat on the floor so the foam pieces did not need to stick.
If you set the board up, then you should have out a spray bottle or small tray of water so the children can get the foam pieces wet.
The best thing to do is try it first on your own with just a few pieces of foam and water to get a feel for how it works.