Preschool shape up

Four-year-olds are one of my favorite age groups to interact with. They’ve developed enough verbal skills and muscle control, that they are mostly past the tantrum stage, but haven’t quite reached that I-Know-Everything stubbornness that you find in older-five and six-year-olds. When my oldest was 4 my husband and I were poor college students, and didn’t have the money to send him to a fancy-scmancy preschool. Another mom and I decided we’d get together and do preschool for our sons ourselves. We were nervous at first, but it turned out to be such a wonderful opportunity! We had so much fun, and our kids learned everything they needed to know and more.
I’ve been teaching pre-school co-ops for almost four years now. And it really is the way to go. Especially because there are so many online resource for lesson plans and fun activities.  You think Pinterest is your friend when it comes to crafty things? Well, I promise you, Pinterest is your BEST friend when it comes to all things educational.
A few months ago, I taught our preschool kids about shapes. I want to walk you through some of our activities, so you can get an idea of some of the resources I use to plan preschool lessons, as well as some different kinds of things to consider including in your preschool day to make it a success.
Gathering Activity: This year our co-op has six preschoolers in it. They don’t all arrive at the same time, so I like to have some sort of activity prepares that they can occupy themselves with while we wait. A gathering activity can be anything really, puzzles, play dough, books, etc. But if I can I like to somehow connect it with the topic I’m teaching for the day. For example, for this shape unit, I brought out our Wedgit Blocks, and challenged the kids to build towers.
New Learning: Right after the gathering activity is when I like to introduce the “new” thing we are going to be learning about and focusing on that day. And I like to do it through a hands-on activity if possible. For example to introduce shapes I handed each child cut-outs of the four basic shapes; circle, triangle, rectangle, square. We talked about each one, and said how many sides and how many angles it had. Then I would describe a shape by saying something like, "I'm thinking of a shape that has three sides and three angles." And the kids would have to hold up their triangles. For more practice with shapes, I made them a bag with paper shapes and colored sticks in it. The idea is to set out the paper shape, and then use the same colored sticks to go around the edge. I did a piece of string so they could do a circle too. I got this idea from a Pinterest link that led me to this blog, and by looking at her picture, I was able to make my own.
Fine Motor Skills: One main purpose of preschool is to develop those fine motor skills. (Fine motor skill is the coordination of small muscle movements which occur in body parts such as the fingers, usually in coordination with the eyes.) Cutting, pasting, and writing are a great way to do this, but there are many others…the sky in the limit, really. In our shapes unit, I had the kids cut out the four basic shapes, use a glue stick to glue them to paper, and then trace around their glued shapes with a marker.
Sorting: Sorting and classifying objects are important pre-math and pre-science activities. They help the brain develop associations and make connections between different things. It also builds vocabulary and concentration. In the shape unit, the kids drew a shape card out of a paper bag, and had to put it under the right group based on how many sides and how many angles it had. I found this activity, and the printables to go with it, in an awesome book put out the the AIMS education foundation called Getting Into Geometry. I have several books from this company and they are all excellent.
Matching: The benefits of matching are similar to those of sorting. Matching increases a child’s concentration, and keeps their brain active. Think of it like exercise for your mind. One of my favorite matching activities is Tangrams, also called pattern blocks. Pattern blocks are a must have, if you have a preschooler, whether you’re teaching them preschool or not. That’s how fun they are. We have really enjoyed our inexpensive magnetic foam set.  And there are tons of free printable patterns online, just search Pinterest for “Pattern Block Mats”. I like to set up our patterns inside a metal cookie sheet, but you can also do them on the fridge, the dishwasher, or any other magnetic surface.
Wiggle Activity: Every preschool lesson needs at least one wiggle activity. Wiggle activities usually focus on and develop gross motor skills. (Gross motor skills are the abilities required in order to control the large muscles of the body for walking, running, sitting, crawling , and other activities.) A wiggle activity can be almost anything that involves movement, but again, it’s more meaningful if you can incorporate it into your subject matter. For our shapes unit, I drew a large triangle, rectangle, circle, and square on my driveway with sidewalk chalk. Then we walked, skipped, hopped, etc. around the perimeter of each one. Then I invited the kids to use the sidewalk chalk to try their hand at drawing their own smaller shapes inside of the large ones.
Snack: I don’t have to explain that snack time is a must for preschoolers. And by now you can guess that a snack is more fun and more meaningful if it goes along with the theme of the day. Pinterest is crammed full of excellent ideas on this topic as well. The snack for our shape unit was so simple, yet so perfect. I gave everyone a large handful of stick pretzels, and we used them to make fun shapes while we ate, counting out the number of sides and angles as we went. Who says it’s not ok to play with your food? :)