LESSON PLAN ACTIVITY OPTIONS (MAY)

SHAPES: Review Of All Shapes We've Learned
 
From Stormie:
Gross Motor: "Find the Shape":
Using all the ones we've learned for the year, tape cardboard shapes to the floor or lay them on the sidewalk.  Have the children take turns following your directions: Call them by name to hop to the square, run to the triangle, jump on the circle, walk backwards to the oval, etc.
 
Creative Art: Classroom Shape Sculpture: Here's a fun creative activity that reviews shapes, but at the same time, permits you to clean out your supply closet at the end of the year: Provide boxes of all sizes and particularly in all shapes: Square ones, rectangular ones (shoe boxes), circular (oatmeal, salt, cardboard tubes), heart-shaped (from that Valentine's Day candy), oval (egg cartons), etc.  Also provide small "shaped" collage items (buttons, pom-poms, stars, those small triangular pretzels, cheerios, etc -- stuff left over from the year's art projects).  Allow the children to create a sculpture by gluing all the boxes together, then painting and collaging it.  They can take turns working on it in small groups.  Later, they can name their sculpture.  This activity can go on for days, or as long as the children's interest lasts.  It makes a great outdoor project!
 
Snack: Shape Review: Provide a large bowl of snacks that are in the shapes learned throughout the school year.  Allow each child (with very clean hands) to name and remove a "shape" till they have one of each shape you've placed into the bowl.

Fine Motor: Toothpick Shapes: Place a container of colored toothpicks in your Small Manipulatives Center.  Children take out what they need and create the basic shapes from them then put them back in the container for the next child who comes along.

Snack: Guess the Shape: I like to do this outdoors at playtime so that I can be with one child at a time while the others are playing.  Call a child over to you for his/her snack.  Tell them you are going to give them a little cup of shape crackers to eat but that you want to play a little game first (after hands are washed).  Then, with their eyes closed, give them one of the crackers to see if they can "feel" the shape.  Then have them feel another shape, and so on.

Jennifer, from Chardon, Ohio, reminds us of this simple but very beneficial shapes idea:
Creative Art: Lots of Shapes: "I used this idea with my daughter and our preschool co-op.  All the kids, from ages 2 1/2-5 loved it.  It was creative and a good way to teach shapes: We provided glue and many different colors and sizes of shapes but gave each child one large square and one large triangle.  The children then went on to build houses, boats, buses, etc."
Extension to this activity from Stormie: Children can also build various objects from assorted shapes without using glue.  Let them simply pick shapes from the pile, build something, then rearrange the shapes and/or get more shapes from the pile and build something new.

Here's a fantastic "following directions" craft from Sharon, in Henderson, Nevada:
Clown: The head is a circle, the hat a triangle, the eyes are stars, the nose a square, and the mouth an oval. The hair is rectangle strips. (Provide lots of color choices.)

From Susie Lampont, Missouri:
Shapes Review Song: Stormie, a teaching friend gave me a "shapes" song that I wanted to pass on to you in return for all those times you've helped me.  The tune is to "London Bridges":
*I'm as round as round can be, round can be, round can be
I'm as round as round can be, I'm a circle.
*My four sides are all the same, all the same, all the same,
My four sides are all the same, I'm a square. 
*I have three sides as you can see, you can see, you can see,
I have three sides as you can see, I'm a triangle 
*Two of my sides are short, short, short,
Two of my sides are long, long, long,
Two sides short and two sides long, I'm a rectangle.

Shapes Poem
(sent from Una Mae E.)

I am Cera Circle
Watch me turn round and round
And you will learn
I’m not straight and I don’t bend
My outside edges never end!

Squire Square is my name
My four sides are just the same
Turn me around, I don’t care
I’m always the same, I’m a square!

I am Danny Diamond
I am like a kite
But I’m really just a square
Whose corners are pulled tight

Ricky Rectangle is my name
My four sides are not the same
Two are short and two are long
Count my sides, come along
1-2-3-4

I’m Tommy Triangle
Look at me
Count my sides
There’s 1-2-3

Opal Oval is my name
The circle and I are not the same
The circle is round, as round can be
I am shaped like an egg as you can see

Harry Heart is my name
The shape I make is my fame
With a point on the bottom and two humps on top
When It comes to love I just cannot stop!

Favorite Books:
From Stormie:
The Shape of Things, by Dayle Ann Dodds; illustrated by Julie LaCome: This is a 24 page book of shape rhymes with pictures that have geometric shapes within them.  While reading it to the children, pause long enough on each page for them to find specific shapes.  I think this is a great "shapes review" book.
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