Welcome back to Porter Library’s Kinder Club Kit blog. Each season, Mrs. K. and Ms. Jamie will put together a Kinder Club Kit containing a variety of early literacy activities that will help your child get ready to make the big leap into kindergarten.
Today’s kit highlights shapes, colors and sorting!
Shapes
Recognizing shapes is a key kindergarten readiness skill that builds the foundation for reading (letter shapes), math (counting, patterns, geometry), problem-solving, spatial awareness and so much more! Follow along with Jack Hartman as he teaches us all about shapes in his Shape Up song.
Now that you’ve listened to the Shape Up song, look at the image below. How many shapes do you recognize? Count the sides on the green triangle. How many did you count? How about the black rectangle? Now, count the sides of the dark blue circle. You are right! A circle has no sides!
When learning shapes, it is helpful to think about things you see every day at home, at school or even outside! For example, a tire is the same shape as a circle. A slice of cheese could be shaped like a triangle, circle or square! Can you think of something that we can make when it snows that will help us learn our shapes? Look at the image below and see if you can make something with all those shapes!
Did you guess that we could make a snowman?
Now you get to make your own shape snow friend! Look in your Kinder Club Kit and find the bag marked Shape Snow Friends courtesy of Preschool Play and Learn. Stack three matching shapes to make each snow friend. Remember to name each shape as you put your puzzles together.
The other shape activity in your Kinder Club Kit is a “Wikki Stix” tracing activity. Have you ever used Wikki Stix before? Wikki Stix were new to me, but Ms. K. knew all about them and thought you would enjoy using them with this activity. In your packet, you should have 6 laminated shape mats. Use the Wikki Stix provided to form each shape. For an added bonus try forming the star shape in the image below. What else can you make with your Wikki Stix?
Colors
Look out your window. What colors do you see? When I look out my window, I see brown branches on the tree, white snow on the ground and a pretty red bird called a cardinal at my birdfeeder. In my house, I see my black winter coat and bright pink scarf. What color is your winter coat? How about your winter hat and mittens? Play along with The Kiboomers as they sing about the many colors of mittens. When you hear the color that matches your mittens, be sure to do the action.
Your Kinder Club Kit includes a mitten matching memory game. See the provided instructions for how to play the game. Do any of the mittens in the game match the mittens you wear in the winter?
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During the winter season, we also wear winter hats to keep warm in the cold weather. In your packet, there are lots of penguins that need to put on their winter hats. Can you match the right color hat to each penguin’s scarf? How many chilly penguins were in your bag?
Sorting
Sorting isn’t just playing. Sorting is the beginning of a child’s math development. Sorting helps children organize information, make comparisons, and understand how things relate to one another. When we sort items, we put them into groups. Can you think of three ways we can sort items? We can sort things by color, shape, size. We can even sort things by texture (how it feels) or location (inside the house or outside the house). When we sort items, we are looking for what things are the same and what things are different. Our friends on Sesame Street, Cookie Monster and Ernie, love sorting and have a quick little sorting video they wanted to share with you!
Are you ready to practice sorting with the activities in your Kinder Club Kit? In your bag, you should find some shape stickers and a tree sorting mat like in the image below. Start by peeling your stickers (this is a great activity to build those little muscles in your fingers that help with holding scissors and tying your shoes). Next stick your shape sticker to the correct tree.
Can you think of another way we could sort our stickers instead of by shape? That’s right, we could have sorted by color or even by the number of sides each shape has.
Looking for more sorting activities? Look no further than around the house. Listed below are a variety of materials found around the house that can be used to practice sorting.
- Laundry – sort by family member, color
- Groceries – sort by location (pantry, refrigerator, freezer)
- Candy – sort by soft vs. hard, chocolate vs. gummy
- Crayons – sort by color or length
- Money – sort by paper vs. metal, size, value
Thanks for visiting the Kinder Club Kit blog today! Our next kit will be available to pick up on June 8. Registration begins June 1 @ westlakelibrary.org/events or call the Youth Services Department @ 440-250-5471.
