geometric shapes

Yesterday I posted about animal shapes, using silhouettes and today we're breaking it down to the basics: geometric shapes.

Much like the tangram project, I cut up a bunch of different shapes, squares, triangles etc. and invited the kids to make any sort of picture they wanted. It's always interesting to see what they'll come up with, but especially fun when they have to think more abstractly.




materials:

Colored paper cut into squares, circles, triangles and rectangles
Glue sticks
Construction paper


get to work:

1. Cut up the shapes.

2. Ask the children to identify the various shapes and help them identify any unknown shapes.

3. Encourage them to take out as many shapes as they want and try to create a picture. (I tried to give them as little assistance as possible here so that they really use their imaginations, but of course examples are always helpful.)

4. Once they've made a few different pictures, hand out the glue sticks and let them fix their creation to the construction paper.

Here are some of the creations my students came up with today:

This is one child's fire truck, complete with a ladder and hose. 

Another child made a "golden caterpillar" butterfly. I love the way the pink circles seem to be dancing above the wings.