What a "Shapely" Start to the Year!

One of the first units I teach every year is a shapes unit and my kids always love it. Something about how shapes are so simple and yet they can be put together to make so many things is such an intriguing idea.


I always read Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh as an introduction to this lesson. If you haven't ever read it, you should! It is an adorable and funny story about how these little mice used lots of different shapes to create pictures to scare away the big cat! Then I give my students black paper and lots of different shapes and encourage them to use the shapes to create a picture of their own, just like the mice did! This is one of my favorite things that we do all year. I love how creative little Kindergarteners can be.

 

 

I also teach Bus Safety at the same time which is perfect because we get to make these super cute shape buses!

Another shape activity I did was have my students trace different shapes on a piece of paper and then they have to count and write how many of each shape. This was difficult for them but such a great fine motor activity and also a great assessment to see who really knows their shapes.