Shapes

In an upcoming week during preschool and toddler storytimes, we're learning about shapes.  The books we'll read for preschool storytime are:

Circle Dogs by Kevin Henkes

Circus Shapes by Stuart J. Murphy and

Lots of Dots by Craig Frazier

In honor of shapes, after the first book we'll do a circle song, "Bluebird, Bluebird."  If you've never done this one before, you can find some demos on YouTube.  We'll do ours somewhat like this one.

After the second book, we'll build a picture with flannel shapes, an idea from a Flannel Friday post from Mel's Desk. I'll give a couple of pieces to each child, we'll decide what to build, and each child will contribute her/his shapes to the picture where they make the most sense. 



After the third book, we'll play another circle song game I saw on Everything Preschool.  The shapes are just cut out of construction paper and laminated.  We'll sit in a circle with the shapes in the center, and the child who is "it" will walk around our circle as we sing, [to the tune of "Skip to My Lou"]
Lost my circle, what do I do?
Lost my circle, what do I do?
Lost my circle, what do I do?
What do I do, my darling?
Then the child will find the shape we've been singing about.  We'll repeat, substituting the names of the other shapes until we've found all of them, and for each verse a different child will be "it."

There will be a take-home sheet for parents for more fun with shapes at home.

For the craft this week, we'll be making quilt squares with wallpaper samples.  One of the youth staff made the quilt templates, and we'll provide children with the wallpaper shapes that they'll glue onto the templates to make a design. 

For toddler storytime, the books will be Shape by Shape by Suze MacDonald, Circus Shapes by Stuart Murphy, and One Sunny Day by Tammi Salzano.  In place of the building blocks flannel activity, we'll do a flannel shape matching activity from Piper Loves the Library. I made triangles and squares in addition to circles, and I'll keep a set for myself, distribute one from the matching set to each child, and sing this song, to the tune of "Happy Birthday to You."

Which circles are the same? 
Which circles are the same? 
Can you tell me, can you tell me,
Which circles are the same?

Children with the matching shapes will come to the flannel board during the song and put theirs together.  Then we'll repeat the verse, substituting the other shapes when appropriate. 

Other books considered that were displayed for check-out after storytime:

Apes Find Shapes/ Jane Belk Moncure

Circle/ Sophie Schrey

Not a Box/ Antoinette Portis

Perfect Square/ Michael Hall

Pond Circle/ Betsy Franco

Rectangle/ Bryony Jones

Shape Capers/ Cathryn Falwell

Shapes, Shapes, Shapes/ Tana Hoban

So Many Circles, So Many Squares/ Tana Hoban

Square/ Bryony Jones

Triangle/ Bryony Jones