Tot School Tuesday: RECTANGLES

We focused on rectangles this week as we work our way through the basic shapes. Here is what we had planned:

And here is what we actually did:

Here are the 5 books that we used as our focus each day.

Rectangles by Jennifer S Burke

Count My Rectangles: A rhyming and Counting Book by Vanessa Rouse

Shapes, Shapes, Shapes by Tana Hoban

Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh

Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert

Rectangle Paper Gluing and Stamping:

We definitely need more work with gluing, so we did the same activity as last week, but with rectangles this time. I cut up a bunch of bright colored rectangles and we glued them to a piece of paper for this easy little art project.

Dot Stamp Recctanlges:

Madelynn LOVES her dot stampers, so we practiced making a rectangle this week. I found the printables for each shape here.

Rectangle Puzzles:

Madelynn loves her puzzles! so we did our rectangle puzzle and practiced the circle and square from the last two weeks too. I made these easy printables for each shape and you can grab them here.

Rectangle Color, Trace and Draw:

Next we worked on our coloring, tracing, and drawing page. You can grab the printables here. Again I mostly just let her decide how she wanted to work on her rectangles and then did a little guiding with my hand over hers to draw a rectangle in the last box.

We are repeating our gross motor activities for all of our shape weeks so you’ll get a peek at the other activities in the next few weeks. Here is what we have done so far:

Shape Hopscotch:

I simply drew some shapes on the driveway, and let Madelynn jump from shape to shape. I also called out shapes for her to jump to which she thought was fun.

Shape Scavenger Hunt:

For this activity I cut out a bunch of shapes from colored paper and hid them around the house. Madelynn searched for them and named the shapes she found.

Shape Roll and Hop:

It’s been very wet and rainy here so we moved this activity indoors and I improvised with painters tape instead of sidewalk chalk. I rolled a shape die and had Madelynn try to hop to that shape.

Shape Turtle Toss:

Roll and Hop didn’t hold M’s attention for long so we moved right on to this activity with the same set up. Madelynn would stand back and throw a bean bag turtle at the shapes, then go retrieve it and name the shape. Pretty easy and I love that 3/4 activities this week have basically the same set up!

Being 35 weeks pregnant, I’m all about simple snacks these days so luckily rectangle foods are pretty easy to find.

Graham Crackers:

Nothing fancy here, literally just graham crackers, haha.

Fruit Strips:

I cut fruit strips into smaller bite sized rectangles for Madelynn. I like the Simply Balanced Organic Fruit Strips from Target.

Cheesy Rectangles:

I usually buy these cheese squares for Madelynn from Target for snack so I made them into little rectangles that she could build with. She’s really into lining things up lately so that kept her pretty engaged.

Size Sorting Sensory Bin:

Included in this bin: black beans, plastic rectangles big & small, cups, scoops, sorting mat.

Shape Sorting Sensory Bin:

Included in this bin: cotton balls, shape buttons, foam shapes, plastic shapes,tongs, sorting mat.

Play Dough Rectangles:

I helped M out by making a bunch of littel “snakes” for her to build with. She made some rectangles and other shapes too this week, then filled them in with smaller snakes.

Shaving Cream Rectangles:

I actually ditched the shaving cream, for blue foam soap. It smelled amazing and added a little sensory experience. Madelynn drew rectangles and other shapes with some help from me and just played with the soap too.