1 SOCIAL Shape Hide and Seek Have all the children hide their eyes while you "hide" a shape in the room. (It should be placed in plain view) Tell the children to find the shape. Have the children take turns hiding the shape. Target: taking turns Do You Know This Shape Do you know what shape this is? What shape this is? What shape this is? Do you know what shape this is, I'm holding in my hand? Note: Hold up a different shape each time and have your children yell out the shape. Target: team work Little Hand, Big Hand What You Need Paper Paint Glitter Glue Various Other Art Supplies of Your Choosing What You Do: Help show the children the difference between little and big. Have your children place their hand print on a piece of paper. Then you (or someone with a bigger hand) put your hand print next to theirs. Let them glue other items that are different sizes to their hand print. Target: peer interaction Read Dr. Seuss' "The Foot Book Measure all of your children's feet. Trace them and put them in order of smallest to largest. Target: peer discussion PHYSICAL Gross Motor Shapes Freeze Dance. I use tape to make large shapes on the floor that we could walk/balance along. I turned on the music and the children dance (or walk) their way around the shape, freezing anytime the music stopped. Target: balance Shape Exercise Cut out several different shapes (square, triangle, circle, etc) and tell your children that each one represents a different exercise (jumping jacks, twist, jump up and down, run in place) and when you hold it up they should do that exercise. Target: muscle coordination
2 Shape Twister Put shapes on construction paper and attach them to the floor so that they cannot move. Pull shapes out of a bucket and have your children put their foot, their hand, etc on it. Target: balance Musical Shapes Tape Different shapes onto the floor. Have your children step from shape to shape as you play music. When the music stops have the children stop and yell out what shape they are standing on. Target: coordination Shape Throw Divide a piece of poster board into eight sections (heart, square, circle, triangle, diamond, rectangle, oval, star). Have your children throw a beanbag at the poster board. Have them tell you what shape the beanbag landed on. Target: eye hand coordination The Color I See (have your children do the action if they are wearing the color you are talking about) Red, red is the color I see. If you are wearing red then show it to me. Stand up, turn around. Show me your red then sit back down. Yellow, Yellow is the color I see. If you are wearing Yellow then show it to me. Stand up, turn around. Show me your yellow then sit back down. Go through as many colors as you wish. Target: muscle coordination Fine Motor Fruit Loop Necklace Have the children create a necklace using the Fruit Loops. Provide the children a piece of string. Tie a large knot in one end or tie a Fruit Loop to one end so that the Fruit Loops don t slide off. Once the children have created their necklace it can be tied up. You can use a smaller piece of string and make a bracelet. Target: eye hand coordination Cookie Cutter Painting Place cookie cutters of different shapes with different colors of paint out for the children to use to paint with on paper. Allow the children to select their own shapes and their own paint colors to create their pictures. Target: grasping INTELLECTUAL Cognitive Shape Sequencing Cut out three to five different sized circles (or whatever shaped you would like to use) Set them on a table and ask your child to arrange the shapes according to size. For younger children, you can just start with two shapes and ask which is the smallest. Target: sequencing Shape Cards Draw different shapes on cardboard cards (for older children make the shapes different sizes and colors). Have your children try to match the cards by shape or color. Target: marching
3 SIZE LINE UP Take two or three straws and cut them into 4-5 pieces of various sizes. Set out the straws on a table and have your children take turns placing the straws in order. Have the child find the largest piece of straw and place it at the bottom. Then have them find the next largest and place it on top of the largest piece. Continue until the straws are stacked up in order of size. Extension: A fun extension of this activity is to have the child put the straws back into The original straw lengths. Target: sequencing Colored View Each day cut out different colored cellophane shapes and tape it to the window. Have the children look through the window and discuss what they see and what it looks like. Everyday add a new shape to the window overlap part of the shapes. Point out the new color and shape and invite your children to see how the corners of cellophane overlap to make even more colors. Target: labelling Shape Sizes Cut out different sizes of shapes (circle, square, stars etc.) and have your children match them by size, line them up from big to small, etc. Target: matching Find-it Ask each child to find something in the room with a certain color, shape or size. They can then individually go get their object and bring them back to share with their peers. Target: concepts Big Ball, Little Ball Get a big ball (maybe an exercise ball or a large beach ball) and a small ball. Teach your child which is big and which is little. Sing the "big and little" song: (sing to the tune of twinkle twinkle little star) Big, little, big, little, big, little, big little, The repetition of this song will help your child grasp the concept. Test your child's listening/cognitive skills by then asking, "Which ball is big?" "Which ball is little? Target: labelling Language Our Shapes Two sides short and two sides long, Two sides short, two sides long. Two sides short and two sides long, We're a rectangle. Our Four sides are just the same, Just the same, just the same,
4 Our four sides are just the same, We're a square. We've got three corners and three sides, See our sides with your eyes. We got three corners and three sides, We're a triangle. We're as round as we can be, We can be, we can be. We're as round as we can be, We're a circle Target: vocabulary Shape Song Cynthia Circle, Cynthia Circle is nice and round No corners on her are ever found. Samuel Square, Samuel square that's my name. I have four sides that are all the same. Tilly triangle, Tilly triangle is here to see you. She has three sides and three points too. Ricky Rectangle Ricky rectangle is a funny sort Two sides are long and two sides are short Target: rhyming Colors (Sung to: Head, Shoulder, Knees, and Toes) Red, yellow, green and blue green and blue Red, yellow, green and blue green and blue Purple, orange, brown and black Red, yellow, green and blue green and blue Target: repetition Red is an Applel Red is an apple Yellow is the sun Blue is the sky And purple is a plum Orange is an orange Green is a tree Black as the sky I know my colors as you can see! Target: vocabulary CREATIVE Sorting Gather a bunch of big and little items. Have your child sort them by size (big items in one pile, small items in another). Target: problem solving
5 Different Shades of Colors Give a white ice cube tray to the child and fill the first three holes with red, yellow and blue water. Give the child an eye dropper (or medicine dropper) and let them mix the colors in the empty spaces. This will create many shades of colors. Target: creativity Colored Cubes Makes some ice cubes using different colors of food coloring. Put the ice cubes in your water table and let the children play with them and watch them melt and make different colors. Target: texture Fruit Loop Color What You Need: Fruit Loops Plastic Baggies Paper Glue What You Do: Have the children find a specific color of the fruit loops. Then put them into plastic baggies and let them crush them. We used blocks for this. When they are all crushed put let them put glue on the paper and springle them all over. My two's and three's absolutely loved it!!! Target: creativity EMOTIONAL The Color Mixer Pyramid What You Need: Paint Paper What You Do: Have child dip their hand in Yellow paint and place at the very top their paper. Dip other hand in Red paint and place at the very bottom left corner of their paper. Rub hands together to create Orange and place a hand print in between the Red and Yellow. Wash their hands. Dip a hand in Blue paint and place at the very bottom right corner of their paper. Dip the other hand in Red and mix the two hands together to create Purple. Place a hand print between the Red and Blue hand prints Wash hands. Dip a hand in Blue and a hand in Yellow and rub together to create Green. Place this hand print between the Blue and Yellow. You know have a pyramid of colors! For younger children just making handprints on the paper will be all they want to do and that is fine. Target: independence Read a book about.. Shapes Sizes Colors Target: self expression
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