As an Elementary School Teacher turned Preschool teacher I am always so inspired to turn academic learning goals into fun and age-appropriate learning activities for my preschoolers. My program, at times, is much more academic than others in my area. But the kids LOVE it! They feel empowered by what they learn and are excited to connect it to past and future learning throughout the year.
My preschoolers and I are currently studying shapes. They are making all sorts of shape patters on their own time, and I thought they would enjoy making a shape graph for a group project. We tried it today and it was a huge success, so I thought I'd share our learning process.
My preschoolers and I are currently studying shapes. They are making all sorts of shape patters on their own time, and I thought they would enjoy making a shape graph for a group project. We tried it today and it was a huge success, so I thought I'd share our learning process.
Whole Group Graphing Activity
My kids went on a shape hunt around the school. Their goal was to find five different objects with shapes they liked and bring them back to our circle rug.
We pretended our rug was a large piece of paper, and made blue construction paper lines for our graph columns. The kids helped me count the number of columns on our graph. We talked about how a graph can tell us how much of something we have. We discussed the terms "most" and "least". I told them we had collected a bunch of shapes and we wanted to know which shape we had the most of and which shape we had the least of. I modeled putting up three objects (two things that were shaped like a circle and one object shaped like a square).
I invited the kids to bring up any objects they had that looked like a circle, and to add them to our circle column. Then we did the same with our squares.
The kids decided what our other columns would have. We ended up with triangles, rectangles, hexagons, and diamonds. Then the kids decided all the things we had with "weird shapes" as they called them, would go in a line off to the side.
Wrap-Up Discussion
Our discussion at the end was great because we could tell which column had the least with our eyes. But the circle and square columns looked about the same so the kids thought we should count them. It turned out they both had 12 objects-tied for the most! This is a great shape vocabulary activity because you might have flat objects, or objects that are three-dimensional. You can discuss a lot of math terms too.
Follow-Up Activity
A great follow up activity is to give the kids the supplies to make their own shape graphs. I put some cups out with a handful of sticker foam shapes (and an empty cup for the sticker backs). The kids got a piece of paper set up with a graph and they got to take our learning from our whole group graphing and try it out independently. This was one of our Center Options that same day. The kids had a lot of fun and were excited to see which shape in the cup would have the most.
Did you like this? You May Also Enjoy:
Shape Patterns!
Last year my kids used the same Creatology Foam Shapes to make shape patterns. This was a favorite activity and I am excited to try it out again this year :)
Color Graphing!
I also do color graphing each year with fruit-loop cereal. The kids get a bowl full of loops and work to glue them on to their color graph!