Shapes are every where!

Early Learning Early Learning General Discussions
1

Hey there!
Has any one tried teaching shapes .They are all around us .I mean the complex shapes like pentagon,hexagon,cone,rhombus,trapezium,cube,sphere etc…
I am teaching that it gives your child another way to look at things for example I would say to my baby taking an egg .This is an egg. It is an oval shape.
Every where i look there are different shapes…
Any questions please feel free to ask. :slight_smile:

2

yes that’s one of the best way to teach different shapes. i do the same thing.I also tell him the color along with the shape. my son loves this way of learning shapes & colors. :biggrin:

3

it’s a good method I hope :slight_smile:

4

With my eldest daughter I cut the various shapes out of construction paper and taped them to our wood floors. She loved to play the shape game. I would call out a shape and she would run and stand or jump on it. She knew circle, square, triangle, rectangle, pentagon, hexagon, octogon, parallegram, trapizoid and cresant by the time she was two.

5

My two-year-old has a basic understanding of shapes. He especially understands star and circle. He can do the shape sorter activities without any difficulty.

I plan do homeschool or at least supplement in the future. One of the activities that I want to do with my children is to make a geodesic dome. You can do this by rolling up newspaper, and it can actually be very strong. An example of someone building one is below:

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh236/ep11904/montgomery.jpg

6

hi! tstaceycanada and purplefungi thats great thanks for sharing

7

Can you give us instructions on how to make one, purplefungi?

8

Hee, hee! I love domes! I think that a toddler would love to hide out in one of these beauties. You could always put a blanket over it and make a fort! :slight_smile:

Here you are ladies and gentlemen:

Site # 1 YesMag Geodesic Dome Clubhouse
http://www.yesmag.ca/projects/geodesic.html

# 2 Home Education Resources Engineering for kids
http://www.homeschooling-ideas.com/engineering-for-kids.html

#3 Instructables
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Build-a-Geodesic-Dome/

# 4 Newspaper Dome
http://dome.zillabit.com/newspaperdome.html

More pictures from the web just for fun:

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh236/ep11904/FX1YBSGFAKC0LNAMEDIUM.jpg

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh236/ep11904/IMG1252Geodome2-main_Full.jpg

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh236/ep11904/domecolorful.jpg

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh236/ep11904/brockville.jpg

9

Those are awesome. I think my dd would try to climb it (she climbs everything but ds would really enjoy building.

10

I watched a kid show once on PBS when I was younger, and they built one of these domes. These kids were actually trying to sit on the dome, and it held their weight for a while! The beauty of the dome design is its surprising strength! :slight_smile:

11

Here are some more ideas for domes since I just get so excited about talking about them!

Gumdrop and toothpick dome:
http://www.blisstree.com/articles/gumdrop-geodesic-domes-119/

Construction paper or manilla folder dome:
http://www.earth360.com/math_geodesic_dome_education.html
http://www.cccoe.net/stars/2mdome.html

12

thanks for the amazing ideas! :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

13

Wow- those domes are really cool, purplefungi!. BTW, I really like your blog- you have lots of great learning activities. I think you’d do great at homeschooling your kids.

I had an early childhood educator tell me that learning shapes early, helps with reading skills, because letters are basically lines and shapes put together.

Angie

14

Hey thanks! That means a lot to me! Not everyone is so thrilled about the home school idea. My siblings are against the idea, my mom thinks that I’m crazy (that by the time that my oldnest is six that I will want nothing more than to send him to school to save my sanity), my mother-in-law has no idea, (she always talks about how nice it will be when I am able to send my kids to school) and the girls at work think that children who are homeschooled don’t get socialized and that they will turn out weird. :mad: :confused: :wacko: I try my best to ignore everyone. I personally know about ten very well adjusted and smart home schooled adults and teenagers.

That makes since about shapes and reading skills! :slight_smile:

15

I am not creative enough, or organized enough to homeschool. Nor do I have the patience!! I will say my daughter was painfully shy, even though we did playdates and outings. She needed to go socialize outside of my presence. And she has blossomed in preschool. But I would like to enhace her learning and do projects and help with learning. But I’d say go for it. At least until they outsmart you! (Then send them to college.) I really respect people who homeschool- it has got to be hard work. And rewarding.

Angie

16

I think that supplementation is great. If I’m unable to homeschool, I know that I will at least be doing that. I’m glad that you child is opening up to other people! I have the opposite problem with my two-year-old because he will go up to anyone even psychiatric patients (I work at a hospital).

This age is hard for me to teach. I actually can’t wait to teach more advanced things. My husband says that I can HS until high school, but ironically I would be better at teaching secondary materials over primary materials. We’ll see though. It’s still very early in the game! :slight_smile:

17

Hi there

Thanks for posting the shape presentation, I was in the middle of making my own simplistic version as in one shape per slide, name on another slide. I noticed you went into detail and wrote about angles, how do you go about introducing this to a 3 year old. Do you read out each section slowly or fast? Print it out and fold, showing one side at a time? Or? (pls excuse me as I am not yet aware of the principles or processes used by Doman etc)

Thanks