"Learning Time" Series: Shapes and Sizes

Shapes

We started shapes around age 2 when he got really into Sesame Street. We had a little Sesame Street book that introduced circles, squares, triangles, and rectangles. He learned to recongize/identify circles and triangles first (because Cookie Monster loves the circles cause they're the shape of cookies and Telly loves triangles because there are entire episodes of Sesame Street dedicated to Telly's love of triangles, so those 2 shapes really stood out to the little man) and the magnets that came with his magna doodle are a circle and triangle.

Then he learned stars and hearts. I think he learned those next because of playing with star and heart play doh cookie cutters and because of a little shapes puzzle we have that also has star and heart pieces. For the longest time those were the only 4 he really knew and could identify every time with accuracy. And he pretty much learned those on his own. We never did any shape "activities" or pushed him learning those.

Once he turned 3 (or was almost 3) I started working with him more on learning shapes. We read more books about shapes and also found real life things to sort into groups based on their shape. He learned square next and eventually learned rectangle, diamond, and oval although he still doesn't have those completely mastered.

One of the fun ways we practiced shapes was by cutting out shapes from construction paper and gluing them down on another sheet. I mainly did the cutting, little man just sort of practiced using his safety scissors. But he loved gluing down the shapes! So we talked about what shape we were gluing and where he wanted it glued, and after we finished it was proudly placed on the refrigerator.... which meant the shapes could be discussed a lot more. =) Another way we practiced shapes was by making shapes out of play doh. We used cookie cutters some, but Garrison loves using his play knife when he plays with play doh so I helped him cut out shapes with his little knife. (A picture of that is somehow the very last picture even though I didn't want it to be last... can't seem to get the hang of the "new" blogger yet.)

I also think having a "thing" or "clue" to associate with each shape has helped Garrison. In the beginning he associated circles with Cookie and triangles with Telly. He associates squares with "box", rectangle with "long", and diamond with "kite". We still don't have a good one for oval... hmm... maybe that's part of the reason it's so hard to remember.

Sizes and Ordering from Smallest to Biggest

I honestly can't remember when Garrison learned to differentiate between "big" and "little". Hmmm. Guess I'll just play it by hear with Austin. I know with Garrison it pretty much started with this puzzle:

We always discussed finding the "little, baby animal" and then the "big, mama animal". Once he could distinguish between big and little and really got the hang of that we gradually threw in "medium" especially when making balls out of play doh. He always requests a really big one and then we always end up making several so there's some little, some big and some medium. I don't think we really got into ordering things by size until he was 3. We would talk about it if it came up but I never intentionally "taught" him until he was about 3.

Ordering by size can be a little confusing, especially when using tons of play doh balls (which I don't recommend until they sort of have it down), but with practice my little man finally got it down. Ideally we start with 3 (small, medium, large) play doh balls, cars, dinosaurs, whatever you have around and then let your little guy or girl figure out the biggest and the smallest and put the medium sized one in the middle. Then you can add more and more. I think the most confusing thing for Garrison was the "vocabulary". He looked at me puzzled and confused when I said things like, okay which one is bigger than this one, but not the very biggest? That was tough for his little mind to comprehend. Finally I switched gears to building up to bigger and bigger so he was focusing on which one is a little bigger than this one... and a little bigger than this one, etc. That worked a little better.

There are all sorts of things around the house that can be put in order it's just a matter of getting my busy 3 year old to slow down long enough to do it. I'm thinking I might have him line up his bowls (really my bowls he declared ownership of as a crawling toddler who claimed his very own cabinet) from smallest to largest while I cook supper tonight. Wonder if he'll go for it?? Maybe I'll throw in a surprise of Cheetos if he cooperates. =)