Diamond and oval day

1. Gather your materials: - Plastic plates with the shape of an oval and a diamond. I made them on foam. - Cardboard shapes of oval and diamond. - Diamond and oval puppets. You can find them here: http://lovemylifex4.blogspot.com/2010/03/shape-beginnings-circle-time.html - A bowl with beans and diamonds and ovals shapes cut in cardboard hiding inside. - Oval and diamond working sheets. You can find them here: http://lovemylifex4.blogspot.com/2010/03/shape-beginnings-magnet-pages.html - Sticks and fingerpaint.

2. We played with our shapes puppets and shapes on cardboard: a) Let’s put the diamond on the floor, let’s put it on your nose… as you can see in the pictures. She took the diamond and I took the oval. She enjoyed this one and proposed some of hers. b) Moving with the puppets: jump, fly, swim…

3. Diamond and oval hunting and matching. She really made a great job all alone with this activity. I only had to help her with the shapes that were sunk in the bowl. She needed to see part of the shape to find it. After finding the shape she matched it with the correct plate. I only made 6 of each shape because I didn’t want her to get bored with a long activity. It was a hit.

I didn’t plan this one; it was a leftover of my materials with ovals and diamonds. She found it on the sofa and very happy point she at each one saying the correct name.

4. Working sheets. a) I gave her the oval sheet and some stickers. She took the stickers and stuck them inside the circles. When she was tired of a color I gave her another color sticks. She didn’t finish all the circles but as you see she made a very good job all by herself.

b) I gave her the diamond sheet and some finger-paint. She enjoyed but we had to work to paint inside the circles and we changed the color when she was done with red. The sheet was finished and she wanted to paint even more. So I gave her a white sheet and she painted freely. Sometimes we have to respect their wishes and it was a good moment because learning time was over.

c) Finally we stuck our working sheets on the learning poster.

5. She helped me cleaning up the beans. Isn’t she a good helper?