Teaching Shapes {part one}

This week we have been working on our shapes. Thing 1 was already familiar with his shapes, so this was not brand new information.

When first introducing the shapes, we started out with the basic shapes; square, triangle, circle, diamond, and rectangle. I used shapes that are plain white, with a black outline, so that I could isolate the concept of "shapes".

The first activity that we did was cutting and pasting shapes.

You will need:

Basic Shapes Print Out

Glue (I pour it into a small cup)

Q-tip (spreading the glue)

Sheet of construction paper (something that is not white)

I cut out the shapes (if you child is older you could allow him to do it himself), because I wanted them to still resemble the shape that I was teaching!

I showed Thing 1 one shape at a time. Handing him the circle, saying "This is a circle". Then allowing him to trace the circle with his fingers. Then he glued the circle on the paper, using the q-tip to spread the paint. Once he pasted the circle on the paper, we traced it again, saying "this is a circle".

We continue this with all of the shapes. When he had finished gluing all of the shapes, we went back and talked about and traced each shape again!

The finished product:

He glued all of these without any help from me!!! I'm a proud mama!!

Here are a few tips for teaching shapes to small children:

Teach one concept at a time (resist the urge emphasize the color AND the shape)

Say the name of the shape, while the child traces the shape.

Keep it simple (there's no need to talk about how the square is made of of four right angles just yet)