One of the most common skills taught in an early childhood classroom is identifying shapes. We use many approaches to help students understand shapes, but research shows that the best is a hands-on approach. In this article you will find 5 different centers that you can use with your students to help cement their knowledge of shapes. These centers not only focus on shapes, but they incorporate colors and will help your students with their fine motor and social skills too.
We. Love. Dough. My kids go bananas when I get out the Shape Learning Mats and Classic Dough Set because they know they're in for a fun time! The Shape Learning Mats come in a set of 16, each with a different scene. Not only are my students working on their shape recognition, but they are also working on their fine motor skills by rolling and manipulating the dough.
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Who doesn't love a good puzzle? My students fought over these Dr. Seuss puzzles when I got them out last month. These self-correcting puzzles have a picture of a shape on one side and a colored fish on the other side. To put the puzzle pieces together students have to find a fish that matches the color of the shape. The students aren't just working on shape recognition in this center, they are also working on color identification as well as their fine motor skills.
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This Shapes Magnetic Activity Set comes with 15 laminated mats and 21 shape magnets. Students can match shapes in a scene or they can sort shapes. Each mat has a different theme, from a swimming pool to outer space! With the different themes, my students never get bored of this activity set.
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This was an activity that I introduced to the whole group and then, once my students were comfortable with the skill, I let them take it into centers. This concept was a little bit more challenging, because it worked with flat shapes along with solid shapes. The set comes with category and shape cards so students can sort by flat/solid, 2d/3d, or sides. The shape cards have real life pictures and pictures of the shape which helps solidify the concept of each shape in their heads.
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My kids are loving this GeoFun Shape Set! It can be used two different ways depending on which skills you are focusing on. If you are focusing on color recognition, you can have your students sort by colors. They will have a red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple stem. If you are focusing on shapes, you can have them sort by shape. My students also just loved working on their fine motor skills and stacking the shapes any which way they could.
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