Caitie is sharing tips for using the preschool song “The Shape Song #1” in the classroom and at home for lots of fun learning with little ones. She has lots of great ideas! And she’ll lead us through the song using gestures – an excellent way to introduce a song to children. “The Shape Song #1” is a fun song with a built-in game to learn and find shapes.
Try these ideas in the classroom or at home!
- If your students are learning the names of the shapes for the first time, introduce them before you sing the song. You can use shape flashcards, or simply draw them on the board. When drawing a shape on the board, be sure to show the finished shape, but it is also helpful to show how the shape is drawn. Make the shape on the board as your students watch and go slowly as you make each line. You can even count the lines as you make each shape so they learn that a square has four sides, for example.
- Once your students are familiar with the different shapes in this song, the shapes fun can begin! To play the game, simply press play and listen to the song. Each verse encourages students to make the shape. You can have them draw the shape on a piece of paper or pretend to draw the shape using their finger in the air. There is also a musical break in the song where students are encouraged to go find that shape somewhere in the room. You can have your students move about the room to find the shapes, or they can point to a picture of the shape on the board, or maybe they can search through a sensory bin with cut-out shapes in it to find their shape. You can also watch the music video for this song and look for shapes in the video.
- For a great activity to practice identifying and making the shapes, give your students a shapes template. You can also easily make one yourself by drawing an outline of the shapes you want to practice. There are lots of different ways you can effectively use a template like this: have your students trace the outline of the shapes, or color them in. You can use dough or pipe cleaners to make the shapes and place them on top of the template. Or you can use the template as a scavenger hunt list and have your students find one of each of the shapes in the room or in a shapes sensory bin.
- Try playing shapes bingo for a fun game with shape recognition. You can print our game boards, or make your own. Simply make a grid of squares and fill them with different shapes you are learning. You can make shape cards for students to place onto the squares so the board is different each time you play. Then the teacher can draw different shapes from the game one at a time on the board. If a student has that shape on their bingo card, they can cover it up. You can play until someone has bingo, either they have a line marked or their whole board is covered.
- You can also use shape flashcards to play a matching memory game. Print multiples of each card, mix them up, and place them face down on the floor or on the board. Have a student pick two cards to flip over. As they flip over each card have them identify the shape they found. If the two shapes are a match, they can keep the cards and get a point. If the two shapes are not a match, they get turned back over and another student gets a turn to try to make a match.
- For more shapes practice, use The Shape Song #2 which explores more shapes. In the second version, we sing about a triangle, rectangle, oval, and star.
More resources for this song (1)
