Teach Preschool » Shapes

Painting with circles in preschool

Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 04:24:05 +0000

We are off on a new adventure as we explore shapes over the next few weeks and today, we spent a little time painting circles…

Just to make it a little more interesting, I stapled groups of paper tubes together for the children to paint with. I had tubes in groups of one, two, three, and four circles….

I also set out new colors of paint for the children to paint with. It seems we have used so many fall colors lately that it was nice to see a little pink and purple on the table for a day…

We explore shapes all the time in our classroom but I like to highlight shapes throughout the year so today we just focused on making circles…

This last photo I am sharing just because I thought it was interesting to see this child examining the tube. You never know what will be of ultimate interest to a child in the process of creating…

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Tissue box challenge: making simple squares in preschool

Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 21:56:52 +0000

I just love a challenge because it makes me think “outside of the box” – yes pun intended…

JDaniel4′s Mom and The Activity Mom are hosting this fun little challenge as a creative way to recognize earth week. The challenge is to make something out of a tissue box! I really am not all that creative but I do love to paint so I decided to do a little tissue box painting…

I simply started off with a tissue box (I had two empty ones just for fun) and some finger paint that I picked up from Walmart but I am sure any kind of paint will do. Then I squirted several colors of the paint on the paper plate…

Next, I pressed the bottom of the tissue box in the paint…

And started making tissue box prints (squares) on my paper…

I got carried away with the prints and used the side of the tissue box for rectangles too…

This was really fun and I ended up making three different papers of tissue box prints by the time I decided it was time to stop…

So don’t throw away that tissue box and be sure to check out all the other creative ideas you can do with tissue boxes by clicking on the box below!

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Snowflake puzzles in preschool

Deborah J. Stewart, M.Ed. — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 16:44:13 +0000

There are lots of snowflake ideas out there and at the end of this post, I have collected a few links to other ideas that I would love to try. But first, let me share with you this simple snowflake puzzle we made this past week.

The PreK children in this class were given a printout of a snowflake (I do not have a copy of this printout), some blue construction paper, scissors, and glue to get them started.

The children used their own judgement in this class to cut out simple construction paper shapes that will fit inside the snowflake pattern…

Then they glued the construction paper shapes onto the snowflake…

In the PreK class next door, the teacher had pre-cut the construction paper shapes…

I noticed that the children who cut their own shapes spent more time working to make sure the shapes fit in each space of the snowflake puzzle….

They would cut, visually measure, cut some more, and work out the positioning of each construction paper shape until they were satisfied…

When the children finished their work, they each printed their own name on their puzzle…

In the class where the pieces were all cut out for them, the children covered their snowflake more fully and although most of the children started out trying to fit the pieces into each section – I noticed that in the end, they tended to not worry so much about whether a piece fit here or there…

The same project with two different teaching approaches. This happens all the time! My message to all teachers as I observe their individual teaching approaches is to always keep in mind what the children are capable of doing and give them the opportunity to try.

Now here are some of those snowflake links I promised you….

Tired, Need Sleep : Crystal Snowflakes

The Artful Parent: Marshmallow and Toothpick Sculptures

Let’s Go Fly a Kite: Snowflake Matching Game

The Seeds Network: Popcorn Snowflakes

The First Grade Parade: Symmetrical Snowflakes

Frugal Family Fun Blog: Easy Snowflake Suncatchers

I Can Teach My Child: Puffy Snowflakes

A Little Learning for Two: Paper Snowflakes

The Honorable Mention: Q-tip Snowflakes

Alphamom: Plastic Berry Baskets into Glittery Snowflakes

Almost Unschoolers: Glittery Snowflake Window Clings

The Artful Parent: Bleeding Snowflake Tissue Prints

Frugal Family Fun: Tape Snowflakes

I am linking this post up with No Time For Flashcards!

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T is for triangle colors and patterns

Deborah J. Stewart — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:00:38 +0000

The two year olds in this class are exploring triangles. Each child reaches into a bag and selects different colors of triangles they would like to glue to their paper.

While the children work with the glue, the teacher converses with the child. “What color would you like to glue next?” “I see you are creating a pattern – blue, green, blue, green.” ”What shape are you holding in your hand?”

The child uses his hands to brush on the glue, turn over the triangles, and tap the triangle down in place. This is a simple process but the objective is to not only present a process that child can enjoy but to also open the door to new learning about shapes, colors, and patterns.

And in the end, the child has a bright, colorful shape picture to display on the wall. Once the picture is displayed, the teachers can again review the beautiful colors, patterns, and shapes.

Simple, creative, and colorful tye dye for preschoolers

Deborah J. Stewart — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:53:33 +0000

I have seen others make this type of activity on their blogs so when my nieces came over, I thought we should try it all out. What we discovered is that this activity (which we now call designer paper towels) is an idea that just keeps on keeping on. So here it goes:)

Setting up
I set out…

Newspaper (to keep from ruining my table)
Paper towels (the bounty rectangles/half sheets)
Paper plates (to put under the paper towels while wet)
Washable markers (bright colors work best)
Black permanent markers
Spray bottle with clean water

The girls use the black permanent marker to draw items like their name or a work that they didn’t want to wash out and the colored washable markers for adding color. I had a heck of a time scrounging up markers around the house! Who would have thought a preschool teacher doesn’t have markers at home!

Now the girls just started to color on the paper towels. Some are more advanced drawings and others are just colorful scribbles and designs.

Then we sprayed all the designs with water. We found out that at first the colors didn’t look like they will spread out that much so the girls added a lot of water. But actually, it just takes a bit for the water to soak in and then the colors will begin to bleed out. No need to over soak it!

The girls love this and they made a ton of them. After each paper towel was sprayed then we set them out to dry overnight. This is when I discovered all the wonderful things you could do with these….

Hang on to all the extra designer paper towels and see what you can do next!

A name plate: tape was added around the edges!

A name scroll with tape and a straw!

Tye Dye Quilt: Several sheets of designer paper towels taped together on the back with name in the center.

The left over designer paper towels were then cut into little squares to try a few more activities!

We thought they would make cool looking rainbows!

Just glue the designer paper towel squares on a sheet of construction paper!

Or add it to a sheet of writing paper then have the children print out a sentence or dictate to you a descriptive sentence.

For more Creative Art Ideas….

Gather the following items…

Your designer paper towel squares (or what ever shapes you cut them up in)
Green construction paper
glue
scissors
marker
stapler

Get three sheets of green construction paper and then stack them up so they are all nice and neat:)

Put one staple right in the center of all three sheets so they stay together.

Set a stencil (I chose a shamrock) on the paper and draw the shape. Or you can just let the kids free cut a shape. The key is to keep the paper together with the staple so all three shapes are the same size.

Now cut out the shape then remove the staple from the center. If the children are going to cut through three sheets of paper at once, they will need a good pair of scissors or a little help from an adult!

Now fold the three shapes in half like a book.

Separate the three sheets and add glue to the backside of each one. You will then glue the backs of all three shapes together to make a three dimensional shape or shamrock.

All three shapes are now glued together.

Glue on the designer squares to add some rainbow colors to each shape.

And there you have it! Really, the three dimensional construction paper shapes are good for any object you can cut out! I usually make one for each shape we are learning about to hang up in the room! They look great because all three sides are nice to look at.

Oh, and remember those paper plates we used when making our designer paper towels?

Well we folded some in half.

And made butterflies.

And cut the other ones in half to make umbrellas!

And remember all that newspaper we used?

After it dried, I stacked it up to use again.

No need to waste a thing!