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Shapes Arts and Crafts
Negative Art Cut a square out of the center of the construction paper and they colored it.
Collections For my triangle I cut a larger triangle out of butcher paper and then drew things that had triangles.
Lacing Cut out a square, punch holes along the side, take some yarn enough to thread thru your square, put tape at both ends of the yarn and thread thru holes on the square. You can do this with all the shapes.
Nesting Give the children a large square sheet of paper, a smaller one, and smaller one, a smaller one, and smaller one and so on. Have the children glue them on top of each other by size. (hope that makes sense).
Sponge Painting Square sheet of paper, paint and square shaped sponges.
Collage Cut a bunch of square from construction paper (or even better. . . let the kids), have them glue the squares onto a square sheet of paper and make a square collage.
Shape Pictures Give them a bunch of different sized squares and have them make a picture of anything they want with them.
Shape Painting Give them a large sheet of square shaped paper and let them choose their favorite color paint. Encourage them to paint the whole square. While still wet, sprinkle with glitter.
Stencils Make square stencils (use tagboard)
Picture Frames Make square picture frames using popsicle sticks
Shape Placemats Have the children cut out the different shape you are using like you said you were using circles and ovals. (or you cut them out) Have the children glue the circles on to one side of construction
paper and ovals on the other side, then laminate. Then when you eat ask the children to find the ……. shape to eat on. Remember you can use clear contact paper instead of laminating. And if you need it to be stronger use light cardboard.
Art Shapes Cut out different shapes like your circle out of tissue paper and brush glue onto wax paper and glue the shapes to it.
Shape Collage Materials: Construction Paper and magazines Draw large shapes on construction paper. Have the children fill in the shapes using pictures cut from magazines. Fill a circle with circular shapes etc.
Rolling Designs Materials: Yarn, glue, toilet tissue tubes, paint, and construction paper.
Give the children pieces of yarn or string to dip into bowls of glue. Have them wrap the glue-covered yarn around short cardboard tubes any way they wish.
Allow the glue to dry. Make paint pads by placing folded paper towels in shallow containers and pouring on small amounts of tempera paint. Let the children roll their tubes across the paint pads, then all over pieces of construction paper.
Gumball Circles Materials: Oaktag, colored construction paper, glue and crayons.
For each child, cut a gumball machine shape out of oaktag along with a number of small paper circles to use as gum balls. Have the children color their gum ball machine shapes with crayons. Let them choose the circles they want for the gum balls and glue them on their shapes.
Hint: If you are working on a particular color make all the circles that color. Or use stickers.
White on Black Bold Materials: Soap flakes, white finger paint, heavy sheet of black paper, and plastic squeeze bottles. Put soap flake and paint in squeeze bottle. Squeeze out interesting white lines of different shapes on black paper. Arrange them in a bold pattern.
Glue Dots Materials: Food coloring, glue, toothpicks, paper. Use food coloring to tint two or three small containers of glue. Provide toothpicks for each color of glue. Children use toothpicks to dot glue on art paper in a free-form pattern, varying the colors they use.
Fruit Loop Necklace – (circles) Give each child a long piece of yarn with tape on one end. Let them string fruit loops onto the yarn. Ask them to also name the colors as they string. When done tie the two ends together and let them wear. Just make sure to take off before nap time.
Paper Chains – (rectangle and circles) Give each child several paper strips (rectangles) to decorate. When done tape the ends together to form a “circle”. It’s fun to add everyone’s together and see how long you can make it.
Kites (diamond, rectangle) Give each child a “diamond” shape. Let them glue on tissue paper or scraps of paper, add a long “rectangle” tail to the end. Hang in classroom.
Delightful Kites (trapezoid) Materials: 9 in. X 12 in. Art Paper, scraps of art paper in assorted colors, scissors and paste, pencil and eraser, ruler, crepe paper strips
Procedure: Fold and cut out kite shape. Use various colors of paper scraps to create spring kite designs. (flowers, butterflies, birds) Use crepe paper for tails.
Twinkle Star (star) Give each child a star cut from paper. Let them paint it yellow. Before it dries, sprinkle glitter on the star.
Traffic Light (rectangle, circles) Give each child a black rectangle, make it rather large. Let child glue on a red circle, under that a yellow circle, under that a green circle. Discuss the colors and what they mean as you give them to the child. Add a smaller black rectangle to the bottom, will look like a pole.
Triangle Art (triangle) Give each child a large triangle shape. Now give them lots of smaller triangles and let them glue them onto the large triangle.
Build a House (square, rectangle, triangle) Give each child a large square (this is the house) and let them glue it onto a piece of white or blue paper. Now give them a triangle, this is the roof of the house. Now glue on two squares as windows. Glue a rectangle on as the door. A small circle as the door knob. Children can now decorate the background to add a sun (circle).
Shape Book (all shapes ) Give each child a piece of paper with the name of a shape written on the bottom. Now give the child several shapes and let them glue the right one onto the right paper. When done and all the shapes are glued on the right pages, give them another paper but on it write “My Shape Book”. They can decorate this cover if they want. Now staple all the pages and cover together. Kids can take this home and read their Shape Book to their parents. I also do this with Colors.
Shape People Make a circle out of red construction paper (I combine colors with shapes here), make white ovals for eyes with black circles inside, make short rectangles for arms and long rectangles for legs, hearts for hands and triangles for feet, all in different colors. I do the same with triangles, squares and rectangles. I cut all the shapes out but I let the children glue them together. Gluing is another teaching experience. We hang them in the room for the rest of the week and they take them home the following week.
Clown Face Cut out a large circle for each child. Cut out several small circles, triangles, rectangles and diamonds from various colors of construction paper. Let the children paste them to the white paper to make a clown face.
Point a Path Purpose: To provide meaningful experience with geometric shapes.
Provide a muffin tin containing several colors of mixed finger paints for each table or small group of 4-6 children. Supply a large piece of paper for each child. Direct children to make various geometric shapes by dipping one finger in the paint and making a “fingerprint path” to show that shape.
Examples: ” Make a fingerprint path that shows a blue circle.” ” Make a fingerprint path shows a triangle.”
Shapes Caterpillar Cut out a head for the caterpillar. Cut out shapes for children to add as the segments to the body.
Spray Painting Cut out shapes after you draw them onto paper. Then place them on white paper and spray tempura paint over them. Kids get to see shapes on paper and the ones they cutout.
Shapes Box Cut out shapes, put in box. Let children choose shapes to create their own creation to glue on paper.
Rectangle Robots Pre-cut several rectangle shapes: larger rectangle for body, smaller for head. For arms, legs, hands and feet cut paper strips with my paper cutter, in various sizes. Try wrapping paper or paper with other textures too. The kids put their rectangles on their paper first, then when they are pleased with their arrangement they paste them on the paper. Add facial features with crayon or marker and “antennas” with coiled pipe cleaners.
Carbon Drawing Attach a sheet of paper that had shapes on it to a blank sheet of paper with a sheet of carbon in between. The children traced the shapes and were amazed to see it appear on the bottom sheet – though they couldn’t work out why it was blue and not the color of the pencil they were using!
Shape Art Use a shape as the beginning of a picture:
A circle can be turned into a face
A square can be turned into a house
A triangle can be turned into a tee-pee
A rectangle can be turned into a high rise
An oval can be turned into a balloon
A diamond can be turned into a kite
A heart can be part of the body
Shapes Games and Activities
Shape Hopping Tape a bunch of squares to the floor and have a hopping game or play musical squares.
Shapes on Chairs Tape the different shapes you are learning to the back of your chairs. Then when you use the chairs ask a child to sit on a circle shape and so on.
Circle Time During circle time you could put shapes on the floor where you want the children to sit, or you could go to your carpet store and ask for samples of carpet and tape or paint the shapes on their.
Then ask one child at a time to find the …… shape.
Shape Table Have a special table and whenever the kids find something square they can put it there!
Big Book of Shapes Take construction paper and cut them like all the shapes then we cut 3 smaller ones of each shape and laminated them. Take the large shapes and punched holes and put them in a book style just how they are, then using small pieces of velcro and put the smaller shapes on the bigger shapes. This makes a great matching game.
Sensory Shapes Cut different shapes out of different feeling things (sandpaper, wallpaper, carpet, different textures of fabric, etc.) then glue them to a big piece of cardboard, and ask the children to feel the
different shapes.
Game with Shapes We cut big shapes out of construction paper (this is great for colors too) hide them around the room. You could either ask the children to find a circle shape or blue color only, or when they find a shape they need to tell you what it is.
Shape Sorting Game Get a some small boxes, bags or whatever and have shapes or whatever your teaching on cards and put the same shapes on boxes like put circle on one box and oval on another box, put the cards in one of the boxes(kleenex boxes work great). The children need to pull one shape out of the box, tell you what it is and put the card in the box it matches.
Shapes Recipes and Snacks
Circle Day – sliced bananas, grapes, scoop of ice cream, Ritz crackers, muffins, cookies, sandwich made on round bread. English muffin pizzas, bagels, even cut bread slices into circles for french toast or sandwiches, pancakes and pizza.
Triangle Day – triangular chips, cheese slices cut into triangles, triangular crackers, ice cream cones, sandwich cut into triangles
Square Day – cheese cubes, crackers, rice krispie squares, sandwiches cut into squares
Rectangle Day – celery sticks, carrot sticks, rectangular crackers, granola bars, sandwich cut into strips
Apple Sailboat Snack The children make apple sailboats from an apple slice, a triangular piece of cheese, and a toothpick. Eat for snack.
Shape Snack Cut sandwiches into triangles, use square crackers or graham cracker squares with peanut butter, round crackers with cheese and rectangular wafer cookies. Encourage the children to tell us what shape they are eating and we also brainstorm other shaped foods (pizza, cake, cucumber/carrot slices, etc.
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