We have been immersed in SHAPES this week in Woodlands.

Every afternoon, all the Woodlanders have been involved in activities where they are learning about both 2D and 3D shapes, as well as speaking out the shape names and any related vocabulary involved in shape.  The children have also been handling shapes, painting with shapes, wrapping up shapes, printing with shapes and throwing shapes, all in a bid to help embed their learning and understanding.

I am always delighted when a 3-year-old in Woodlands can tell me whether I’m holding up a cuboid or a cube, a pentagon or a rectangle!

Why do we invest so much effort and time in teaching SHAPE in Nursery?

• Basic 2D shapes like circles, triangles, and squares are distinctly different from each other and this makes them great for practising ‘same‘ and ‘different‘.
• Being able to identify where something is the same or different, is the start of really recognizing distinctive traits objects can have and is the first level of categorising. This also engages their observational skills.
• Once the basic ‘same or different’ concept is embedded, the children can move into more complicated categorisation.
• What makes a circle different from a square?  This is exactly what some of the Woodlanders are working on this week – describing shapes by saying how many faces and corners they can see and feel. Categorisation will be an important science skill for your children in the future.
• Shapes are also a way of introducing problem-solving skills. How do objects fit together?
• Pattern recognition also comes into play as well in shape learning and one skill children will develop and always seem to enjoy is tessellating.

So, why don’t you carry on our shape focus this weekend and encourage your children to recognize shapes in their environment, in books and on clothes?

Hope you are all in GREAT SHAPE for this weekend!

Shirley Hayman