We just started playing with a new game sent by Learning Resources called Shapes Don’t Bug Me. It is some serious hands-on geometry fun, designed with pre-K children in mind. As it turns out, my 22-month-0ld also loves to play with the shapes included in the kit, which makes this an activity that the girls will happily do together.
Cue the angels! Cooperative play is happening thanks to geometry!!!
Does it maybe seem a tad overzealous of me to have geometry based learning activities for a kid who can’t yet write her entire name? I can totally see that perspective. But one thing we have learned since putting Darah into Montessori school is that kids’ brains are incredible machines, and they are rapidly mapping information that they will be able to pull from down the road. Any time I can find very tangible ways to help kids grasp what might be thought of as abstract concepts (like math), I leap at the chance to try it out.
By playing with trapezoids and hexagons and quarter circles, my kids are getting a very tactile experience with objects and really learning about them and how they interface with other objects to create shapes. Their muscle memory is being developed as they work with the shapes, and by the time they are learning things like the Pythagorean Theorem in middle school, they will have developed a great level of comfort with shapes and angles that will serve them well!
I’d love to hear if you have any activities that are geometry-based that your kids like to do!
Win it!: One lucky Stuff Parents Need reader is going to win Shapes Don’t Bug Me, courtesy of Learning Resources.
Be sure to enter my other current giveaways, found on the sidebar of my page.