Listed below are the objectives I am focusing on for the themed weeks. The highlighted objectives are ones Carter received exposure to during our theme this week:
- Know the names of and be able to point out body parts.
- Know names of objects and be able to point to them when asked.
- Sort objects based on size or color/Match like objects together, for example match a circle with a circle.
- Play make believe.
- Speak in short phrases and 2-4 word sentences. (He's done some 2 word sentences already!)
- Follow simple instructions.
- I pulled out a bag of wooden shapes with shoe laces I bought in the Target dollar spot a while back thinking they'd be great for practicing fine motor skills by lacing the string through the holes in the shapes. There were triangles, squares, circles, and stars. First I pointed at each different shape, telling Carter the name and helping him sort them by shape. Then I showed him how to feed the lace through the shape and pull it out on the other side. I was amazed he was able to do it. I totally didn't think he would be able to! I tried so many times to get a video of him doing it, but of course anytime I pulled out my phone he dropped the shape and was done! I finally got a video of him doing it this weekend. Something I thought was cute was that he kept wanting to put the shapes on a string of matching color. He'd grab a blue square and want to put it on the blue string!
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| Working on lacing a square. |
- We have 2 different puzzles that focus on shapes. I pulled both of them out and Carter enjoyed working on them. I would tell him the name of each shape as he placed it in its spot and he would repeat it after me.
- Carter also played with his shape sorter. We talked about what shape each of the pieces were as he placed them in the hole where they belonged. After completing it a few times Carter grabbed one of his shape puzzles and placed the pieces from the shape sorter onto the matching shape on his puzzle. I was very impressed and wished I had thought of it, what a great learning activity!
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| With the shapes from the shape sorter matched up with the shapes on the puzzle. |
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| Pointing out the crescent and saying its name. |
- Sweet Ty helped me rummage through totes in the attic and on top of the tornado shelter in the garage to find my geometry math tub activities. I had my heart set on doing a couple of them with Carter and they didn't disappoint. The first was road shapes. I have roads that form different shapes I printed from here, glued onto construction paper to make them stronger, and then laminated. I pulled out the square, circle, and triangle first. I told Carter the name of each shape and had him repeat it after me. Then I showed him how to drive a toy car on it and I counted the sides as I drove the car. He loved it and thought each road needed it's own car. After we'd played with those 3 shapes for a while I got out the rest of the shapes and followed the same procedure to introduce them. When we were finished Carter would pick up the rhombus and say it's name. The only other shape he would say without help was triangle.
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| Driving a car on the circle road. |
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| Getting a different car for each road. |
- The other activity I pulled out of school stuff was a tangram book I made in college. We had to make tangram books for my Methods of Teaching Math class and at the time I thought it was doubtful I could actually utilize the book in the classroom, but I used it in a math tub every year and was now using it again! I'd say creating it was time well spent back when I had a lot more of it. I took Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? and made each of the animals using the tangram shapes. If you've never heard of a tangram before it's basically just 7 shapes: 2 large right triangles, 1 medium right triangle, 2 small right triangles, 1 square, and 1 parallelogram. To learn more about the tangram, read here. I read the book to Carter and then went back through showing him how to place the shapes on the picture to create the picture with our tangram set. I would point to a shape and say "Carter this is the square (for example). Can you find the shape that looks like it?" He'd find the square and place it on the picture. Then he wanted to do it himself and flipped through the book finding the animals he wanted to try. Some of the shapes needed to be turned and after a while he started even turning shapes to get them to fit how they were supposed to. I was really impressed. I hadn't expected him to attempt the pictures alone. His only struggle was that he wanted all green shapes for the green frog, all purple shapes for the purple cat and so on. Unfortunately some of my pieces had gotten lost over my 6 years of teaching, so the set was mismatched colors. I think he gets that from me!
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| Building the cat with our tangram shapes. |
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| Working on the green frog. |
- I had some random sponges in my craft drawer. I bought them for the star sponge to use when making things for my classroom and hadn't touched them since. I pulled out the heart, crescent, and rhombus sponges and then used the other odd shapes to cut out a circle, square, and triangle. Carter dipped the sponge he wanted in paint and used the sponges to create a picture. He would tell me what color he wanted so I could dump it into a plate for him. Then I'd have him show me which shape he wanted and I'd tell him it's name so he could repeat it back to me. He cracked me up wanting to keep stamping new shapes over old shapes.
- We talked about the shapes of our snacks all week long. We talked about how apple slices are semi-circles or crescents depending on how they were cut. We described oranges as spheres. I cut some of his foods into different shapes and he had a blast with it!
- We didn't have an activity that fit in with make believe this week.
- We sang shape songs for circle, triangle, square, and rectangle that I found online. I changed the songs up a little bit because they originally referenced a box (cube) and a ball (sphere) when describing a square and a circle. We all know I can't stand the confusion we are causing with how we teach 2D and 3D shapes. We also listened to a song on youtube that wasn't too terrible. A lot of the youtube songs about shapes were so awful I couldn't even listen to the whole song when I was testing them out to see which to play for Carter.
Triangle Song
A triangle has 3 sides.
A triangle has 3 sides.
Up the mountain, down, and back.
A triangle has 3 sides.
Square Song
A square is like a window.
A Square is like a window.
It has 4 sides; they're all the same.
A square is like a window.
Circle Song
A circle is like a plate.
A circle is like a plate.
Round and round it never stops.
A circle is like a plate.
Rectangle Song
A rectangle has 4 sides.
A rectangle has 4 sides.
2 are short and 2 are long.
A rectangle has 4 sides.
Carter loved the songs I found online so much he grabbed his puzzle I had pulled the square, circle, triangle, and rectangle from to show him as I sang and pulled out each of the shapes I hadn't sang a song for requesting a song for them. I made up songs to go with them that were similar to the ones I found online. I'm not even sure what the tune is that I'm singing the songs to, but I'm pretty sure it comes from a different song.
Rhombus
A rhombus is also a diamond.
A rhombus is also a diamond.
It has 4 sides and 2 points.
A rhombus is also a diamond.
Crescent
A crescent looks like the moon.
A crescent looks like the moon.
It has 2 points and is rounded too.
A crescent looks like the moon.
Oval
An oval is like a circle.
An oval is like a circle.
It's stretched and longer, but it's round.
An oval is like a circle.
Octagon
An octagon looks like a stop sign.
An octagon looks like a stop sign.
It has 8 sides, they all are straight.
An octagon looks like a stop sign.
Star
A star has lots of sides.
A start has lots of points.
Usually it's sides have 5 points.
A star has lots of sides.
Heart
A heart's a special shape.
A heart's a special shape.
It's round on top and pointed on bottom.
A heart's a special shape.
The Shapes Song:
- Since our color walk was such a hit we used that idea again by taking a shape walk. We took pictures of different shapes we saw during our walk and I will use the pictures to create a shape book for Carter just like his color book.
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| Carter checking out all of his shape books from the library. I forgot to pull the books we own from his room for the picture. |
- Skippyjon Jones Shape Up by Judy Schachner
- Eye Like Shapes and Patterns
- Mickey Let's Find Shapes from the Target Dollar Spot
- Shapes from the Target Dollar Spot
- Dino Shapes by Suse MacDonald
- Shapes, Shapes, Shapes by Tana Hoban
- So Many Circles, So Many Squares by Tana Hoban
- Museum Shapes by Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Round Is a Mooncake by Roseanne Thong
- I Spy Shapes In Art by Lucy Micklethwait
- Circle Dogs by Kevin Henkes
- The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns
- Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert
- Color Farm by Lois Ehlert
- Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh
- Round Is a Tortilla by Roseanne Thong
- The Shape of Things by Janine Scott
- Bear In a Square by Stella Blackstone
- Ship Shapes by Stella Blackstone
Very neat! At least I didn't talk too much or too loud during the video. He's a smart little guy.
ReplyDeleteIt's cute to hear you talking on the video.
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