Written by Ms Shelby, Kindergarten Teacher and Coordinator
Over the last few weeks in our Kindergarten classrooms the children have begun to explore and create 2D shapes. They have gone on shape hunts to observe what shapes are in their environments, and participated in both fine and gross motor activities to support this learning. In the classroom, children have had opportunities to notice and count the number of sides on different shapes or notice their similarities or differences to other similar shapes. While lacing and shaping playdough, the children used their developing fine motor skills to pinch the lacing string and push it through the holes, or to roll and press the playdough into their desired shape.
During our weekly Perceptual Motor Program [PMP] session the children also had opportunities to follow the lines of the shapes as they walked around them. As children balanced on the edge of the shapes many of them noticed the points on the triangle and the long sides on the rectangle. Several children also asked where the familiar oval was as they demonstrated their awareness of what shapes were familiar or unfamiliar to them.
Through these experiences the children are further developing their awareness of and description language skills around 2D shapes.
These learning experiences connect to our Early Years Learning Framework Outcomes in these ways:
Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners
4.2 Children develop a range of learning and thinking skills and processes such as problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigating
4.3 Children transfer and adapt what they have learned from one context to another
Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators
5.3 Children express ideas and make meaning using a range of media
5.4 children begin to understand how symbols and pattern systems work