Core concepts in preschool are important. It’s a time when children are learning colors and shapes. Our Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum theme for September was Family & Pets. This wasn’t a part of the program, but I added it since we had limited time (my child care center was closed for six weeks so we missed much of the September theme). So here’s our activity focusing on colors and shapes – red circles.
Colors and Shapes: Red Circles
Red is the perfect color to start with in September since it’s the color of apples. The circle as well, it’s an easy one to identify and goes well with the apple theme.
If you would like the “Red Circles” template page, it’s available at the end of this post.
Simple shape prints can be made with a variety of tools. Look around and see what you have. Stamps are great, but if you don’t have them, you can use round toys, jar lids, milk caps, spools or something similar.
Dip the rim of the cup in a small amount of paint on a paper plate.
We used paper cups. They make nice sized circles and then they can be thrown away after painting. A plastic cup would work as well.
Make circle prints. Kids love doing this over and over.
You could go a step further and add leaves and stems to make apples but we didn’t this time.
Sometimes we overthink things and make our activities complex when all we need is a simple idea! I like to add text to our pages so children are continually seeing letters and words. This helps them to make a connection that words have meaning. It also helps parents understand what we are accomplishing.
Our art display area was created with a circle and star shape garland from Hobby Lobby. I just added glitter clips to hang our art on.
I will put these in our September portfolios.
Loving our display of red circles!
Looking for Circles
This year, Mother Goose Time is providing Shape Sacks. For this small group math activity, we looked around our room for circle shapes. I added one more requirement – the circles must fit in the bag.
Mother Goose Time offers several ideas in the lesson plan book. We don’t have many grocery ads or old magazines so we didn’t do that activity, but now I know I should save a few for future activities.
With some trial and error, we found items that fit in the Shape Sack!
We could take the bag outdoors too, and look for items in nature that are round. Or throughout the month add round objects as we find them.
Be sure to check out all the fun activities for October with Down on the Farm Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum! We have so much fun and my preschoolers are learning through play all day long!