Preschool teachers can create an environment in which children are eager to explore and learn about math. They can provide developmentally appropriate materials and opportunities to help preschoolers understand the topic. Math can be a part of daily routines, activities, and interactions in preschool.
The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) are written to ensure students will leave school ready for work and college. In the CCSSM, two critical areas make up kindergarten content. The first is representing, relating, and operating on whole numbers with sets of objects. The second is describing shapes and space (NGA Center & CCSSO 2010). By the end of kindergarten, children need to demonstrate understanding by analyzing, comparing, creating, and composing these shapes. Preschool teachers have numerous opportunities to help children begin to develop their understanding of shapes and space.
Recognize and compare two- and three-dimensional shapes
In preschool, children can learn to identify and name circles, triangles, squares, rectangles, and ovals. By using materials such as posters, blocks, books, and games, teachers expose children to various shapes and help them analyze two- and three-dimensional shapes in various sizes and orientations.
The following strategies and activities can help preschoolers learn to recognize and compare shapes.
- Identify shapes.Introduce children to different kinds of triangles, such as equilateral, isosceles, scalene, and right. After finding them in the classroom or outdoors, children can outline the triangles with colored tape. For example, they might make right triangles red and scalene triangles blue.
- Introduce math words.Create a math word wall or incorporate mathematical words into the existing word wall—color-code the math words to make it easier for children to notice them. Be sure to write math words in English and in children’s home languages. Teachers can use real objects, photos, and black line drawings to define the words.
- Compare shapes.Ask children to identify different sizes of the same shape. For example, in the classroom they could search for rectangles, such as windows, doors, books, shelves, cabinets, computer screens, tabletops, and cubbies. Next, help children think as they compare the sizes of rectangles.The door is bigger than the cubbies. The cubbies are bigger than the book, but they are all rectangles.Encourage children to do the same with triangles, circles, and other shapes.
- What’s the difference?Explain the differences between two-dimensional (flat) shapes and three-dimensional (solid) shapes.How are the book and piece of construction paper the same? How are they different?
- Create a shape-scape.Teachers and families can collect three-dimensional objects such as cans, cartons, boxes, and balls to create a shape-scape. Children can use cylinders (paper towel rolls) as tree trunks, spheres (balls) as treetops, and rectangles (cereal boxes) as buildings. Teachers and children can work together to label the shape-scape, count the number of shapes used, and plan additions to the structure.
- Go from 3-D to 2-D.Preschoolers can dip three-dimensional objects in paints and press them on paper to make prints. Cans, spools, candles, and drinking glasses work well. The children will see the flat shapes that make up the sides of the objects.
- Discover shapes outdoors.Look for manhole covers, flags, windows, signs, and other distinct shapes. Working together, children and teachers can take photos of the shapes, label them in the photos, and assemble the photos into a class book.
- Learn new vocabulary. Introduce words such asthick, thin, small, large, long, short, facet, slide, flip, andturnin English and home languages during meal and snack times. Offer snacks with various dimensions and encourage children to use comparative words when asking for food.I’d like the long carrot, please.Add these descriptive words to the word wall.
- Play shape hokey pokey.Have each preschooler hold a shape and put it in the circle instead of a body part.Put your square in. Take your square out. Do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around.
- Play a shape guessing game.Have preschoolers play in pairs. Explain that one child will hide the shape behind her back and the other will ask questions about the shape.Does the shape have three sides? Does the shape have four angles?
- Offer geoband challenges.Teachers can offer geoboards and geobands so children can create as many different shapes as possible. Provide an additional challenge by asking children to color-code the shapes.
Create and take apart shapes
Once preschoolers can correctly identify flat (square, circle, triangle, rectangle, hexagon) and solid or three-dimensional shapes (cube, cone, cylinder, sphere), they are ready to create and then take apart shapes using materials provided by their teacher.
- Make a shape.Offer toothpicks, pipe cleaners, straws, or craft sticks as materials children can use to make into shapes. Discuss the shapes they make.That’s a triangle. How could you turn it into a square?
- Create new shapes.Children can glue together two or more shapes cut from paper onto a blank piece of paper to form other shapes.You glued two triangles together to form a rectangle.
- Create solid shapes.Children can roll, pinch, and manipulate playdough or clay to make two or more shapes. Then they can combine their creations to make new shapes.
- Deconstruct shapes.Children can explore how to form three-dimensional shapes. For example, let children watch as you cut rectangular containers such as cereal boxes.How many rectangles are there in the box?Then ask children to figure out how to put them back together.
- Play with tangrams.Have several sets of tangrams and pattern cards on hand. Children can start by laying tans on each pattern. They can progress to re-creating the pattern on another surface and making up their own patterns.
- Build a hexagon puzzle.Cut one hexagon into trapezoids and triangles. Invite children to use those pieces to fill in another hexagon of the same size.
Spatial visualization
Encourage preschoolers to slide, flip, or turn shapes to promote problem solving and an understanding of transformations. These transformations are crucial to developing spatial visualization abilities and understanding geometry, which involves matching shapes through visualization.
- Use the correct terms.A turn is arotation. A flip is areflection. A slide is atranslation.
- Send pattern cards and tangrams home.Encourage families to play, discover, and name transformations at home as they duplicate figures on the cards.Can you rotate the triangle to fit the figure? I saw you slide the rectangle.
- Play a transformation game.Give children dolls or stuffed toys and point out the front and back of each toy. Call out directions—flip your doll up, turn your teddy bear on its side—to see if preschoolers can demonstrate the transformations. After they master flipping the toys, have the children practice with shape pieces.
- Play Mirror, Mirror.Give each child a single set of pattern blocks and a small mirror. Ask children to create a design with their blocks. Then have them hold the mirror up to each side of the design to see how it appears to be flipped in the mirror.
Spatial orientation
As preschoolers learn to identify objects, they can use spatial orientation vocabulary to describe the relative positions of objects. Preschoolers should understand and be able to use positional words such asabove, below, beside, in front of, behind, next to, between, on, over, under,andinside.
- Focus on a word a week.Introduce the word in English and children’s home languages. Use the word throughout the day in the classroom, in the hallway, and on the playground.You are sitting beside a friend. Place your napkin beside the plate. Stand beside your partner.
- Pair positional and shape vocabulary.The clock is a circle. It is beside the door, which is a rectangle.
- Create a book.Invite families to write about a favorite activity using positional words.We drove next to the park, traveled under the expressway, and walked over the bridge.Children can provide the illustrations.
- Use photo examples.Take photos of the children demonstrating positional concepts.Hong is standing under the clock.Add photos and words to the word wall.
- Play spatial Simon Says.Give each child in a small group a stuffed animal and play Simon Says using positional vocabulary.Simon Says put your animal above your head. Put your animal under your chair.
- Create positional obstacle courses.Encourage preschoolers’ use of positional words during play or transitions.Before going outside, climb up the steps, slide down the slide, jump over the cones, and line up next to the door.
- Narrate actions with orientation.Use positional words to describe how the children move from one place to another.You parked your trikes on the playground and next to the window. You walked under the skylight and over the carpet to enter the classroom.
Conclusion
Preschool teachers can create environments and plan activities so young children and their families are both enveloped and engaged in mathematics. Programs can feature numeric and geometric representations with appropriate vocabulary terms. Beyond the classroom, preschoolers can discover and enjoy mathematics in their homes and communities.
Resources
Copley, J. V. 2010. The Young Child and Mathematics. 2nd ed. Washington, DC: NAEYC.
Shillady, A., ed. 2012. Spotlight on Young Children: Exploring Math. Washington, DC: NAEYC.
Zubrzycki, J. 2011. “Common Core Poses Challenges for Preschools.” Education Week 31 (13): 1, 20–21.
FAQs
What should kids know about shape and space? ›
Children need to learn how to think and talk explicitly about mathematical properties such as the number of vertices and sides that define a figure. Composing and decomposing shapes. Children also need to explore and learn about taking shapes apart and using shapes to construct other shapes.
What do preschoolers need to know about shapes? ›In preschool, children can learn to identify and name circles, triangles, squares, rectangles, and ovals. By using materials such as posters, blocks, books, and games, teachers expose children to various shapes and help them analyze two- and three-dimensional shapes in various sizes and orientations.
What do children learn from learning about shapes? ›Learning shapes helps your child learn to differentiate between objects. In order to memorize how shapes are different from one another, they'll learn to pay attention to the little details that distinguish shapes.
How can we support children to understand shapes and spatial relationships? ›Hide and Seek: To help children practice spatial relationships, hide a toy in the room, and give directions on how to find the toy using position words. For example, you might say, "Look behind the chair." Give children blocks and have them think of places to hide their blocks.
How do you explain space to preschoolers? ›Read books and play! First, the best way to learn is for the child to actually see the moon and all the stars in the sky. Just by looking, they'll be fascinated with the light these heavenly bodies produces. Once they are familiar with these two, you can start by reading books about space and the heavenly bodies.
What is the importance of shape and space in the early years? ›Young children learn and understand spatial concepts through play, like with shape-sorters. Understanding the physical properties of objects allows children to picture shapes in their minds and think about how they could be manipulated. This is an important building block of mathematical thinking.
What is shapes and space? ›Mathematically, the areas of shape and space are about developing visualising skills and understanding relationships, such as the effects of movement and combining shapes together, rather than just knowing vocabulary.
What is the relationship between space and shape? ›Form and shape are areas or masses which define objects in space. Form and shape imply space; indeed they cannot exist without space. There are various ways to categorize form and shape. Form and shape can be thought of as either two dimensional or three dimensional.
How do you introduce shapes in preschool? ›- Make a fun shapes sensory bin using shapes from around the house or classroom, foam shapes, or even cut out shapes from magazines.
- Use printable shape mats.
- Read high-quality books about shapes. ...
- Hide shapes around the room and seek them out.
Importance of shapes
Learning shapes not just assists kids with distinguishing and sort out visual data, it causes them to learn abilities in other educational program regions including reading, math, and science. For instance, an early advance in understanding numbers and letters is to perceive their shape.
What is the purpose of shapes? ›
Shapes can play important roles in the creation of drawings and paintings. Shape can help to create complex drawings and paintings, affect composition, and contribute to the balance within a work. Shape can also be defined as a two-dimensional area that is defined by a change in value or some other form of contrast.
What is a shape explanation for kids? ›What are Shapes? In geometry, a shape can be defined as the form of an object or its outline, outer boundary or outer surface. Everything we see in the world around us has a shape.
What can you do to help children learn position in space? ›- Play Simon Says. The traditional game Simon Says is the perfect way to get kids moving and positioning themselves in relation to their environment. ...
- Action Rhymes. ...
- Preposition Songs. ...
- What Am I Doing? ...
- Hide the Toy. ...
- Catching and Chasing Games. ...
- Musical Chairs. ...
- The Cha Cha Slide Dance.
At age three, your child is beginning to build spatial vocabulary with words like: "above," "below," "next to," "inside," "outside" and "through." Toddlers spend most of their time exploring the world, and as they do, they develop their spatial skills.
What is space in simple words for kids? ›What is Space? Space, also known as outer space, is the area directly outside of Earth's atmosphere. Space technically begins at the Kármán Line, which is about 100 km or 62 miles above the Earth. Unlike Earth, there is no air in space, which is why astronauts have to wear high-tech spacesuits to travel there.
What is space simple answer? ›First, some simple answers: space is everything in the universe beyond the top of the Earth's atmosphere – the Moon, where the GPS satellites orbit, Mars, other stars, the Milky Way, black holes, and distant quasars.
What do you teach a 3 year old about space? ›- Activity 1: Find out why the moon has craters.
- Activity 2: Bake some sparkly space rock buns.
- Activity 3: Create stargazing bottles.
- Activity 4: Make your own telescope.
- Activity 5: Make a squeezy rocket launcher.
- Activity 6: Craft a moon phases spinning toy.
- Activity 7: Make a space sensory bin.
Studying space helps us understand our own world
Studying the cosmos gives us an important perspective shift. When we learn about what lies beyond Earth, it gives us context for understanding our own planet. Studying the other worlds of our solar system and beyond makes it clear that Earth is a precious oasis for life.
Beyond facilitating programme delivery, space also plays an inspirational role in education. Classes on space topics often spark students' curiosity and imagination and encourage youth of both genders to become increasingly involved in the sciences.
How important is learning spaces? ›LEARNING SPACE DESIGN ALSO MATTERS
Educators can promote better well-being by creating flexible learning spaces that give students choices in where to sit, foster connection among students, and integrate comfort and inclusiveness into their design. This idea is backed by research.
What are the basic shapes in space? ›
...
- Torus. ...
- Sphere. ...
- Dumbbell. ...
- Cylinder. ...
- Double cylinder.
Most things in space—in particular, stars, planets, black holes and large asteroids —are spherical in shape, like a basketball. This is because the dominant force at the immense scales in space is gravity.
What is the space around a shape called? ›The space around objects is of- ten called negative space; negative space has shape. Space can also refer to the feeling of depth. Real space is three-dimensional; in visual art, when we create the feeling or illusion of depth, we call it space.
Is shape a type of space? ›Shape is a two-dimensional (2D) area of enclosed space defined by other elements of art, such as lines, colors, textures, or other shapes. Shapes are inherently flat and can be either geometric or organic.
What shape is best for space? ›Spheres are best, but cylinders are easiest to manufacture
Most construction techniques in use are based on metal plates. Therefore, spacecraft shaped like cubes or cylinders (a bent plate) are easy to manufacture. The sharp edges are however less optimal than the sphere to withstand internal pressure.
Shape can also work with the element space to create positive and negative spaces. Space is another of the seven elements, and in some abstract art, it defines shapes. For instance, if you draw a solid black coffee cup on white paper, the black is your positive space.
How do you introduce a lesson on shapes? ›- Introduce the lesson by holding up an object such as a ball. ...
- Explain to your students that they will be learning about shapes.
- To help introduce shapes, have each student go around the classroom and select one object.
- Go around the room and have each student identify the shape of his object.
- Circle.
- Square.
- Triangle.
- Star.
- Diamond.
- Rectangle.
Patterns help children make predictions because they begin to understand what comes next. They also help children learn how to make logical connections and use reasoning skills. Patterns can be found everywhere in our daily lives and should be pointed out to small children.
How does a shape sorter help cognitive development? ›The shape sorter allows your child to strengthen their hand-eye coordination, fine motor and problem-solving skills, as well develop their vocabulary knowledge (e.g. being able to identify and name shapes).
Why is it important to learn about shapes? ›
Learning shapes not only helps children identify and organize visual information, it helps them learn skills in other curriculum areas including reading, math, and science. For example, an early step in understanding numbers and letters is to recognize their shape.
How do we use shapes in everyday life? ›They used geometry in different fields such as in art, measurement and architecture. Glorious temples, palaces, dams and bridges are the results of these. In addition to construction and measurements, it has influenced many more fields of engineering, biochemical modelling, designing, computer graphics, and typography.
How are shapes important in our life? ›In fact, understanding shape is foundational to cognitive development, as infants mostly use shape to learn names of objects. Additionally, shape is important because it has applications in everyday life, like in thinking about home projects, and in various careers, like architecture.
What are some ways you can describe shapes? ›- aerodynamic. adjective. an aerodynamic shape or design allows a plane, car etc to move through the air in a smooth and fast way.
- angular. adjective. ...
- as flat as a pancake. phrase. ...
- asymmetrical. adjective. ...
- bent. adjective. ...
- bulbous. adjective. ...
- chunky. adjective. ...
- clean. adjective.
Overview of Rectangles, Squares, Circles and Triangles
As you can see, these four basic shapes can be found everywhere.
Examples of spatial awareness include: being able to do mental rotations in your head. visualizing objects from different perspectives. coordinating how different space is used in relation to other space.
What is spatial awareness in preschool? ›Spatial awareness, also known as geometry, includes knowing about shapes, space, positions, directions and movement. All children need opportunities to play with blocks and puzzles.
What is one example of childhood spatial awareness? ›A good example of spatial awareness and how it is learned is demonstrated by the infant who is learning to reach out and grab a toy.
What children know and need to learn about shape and space? ›Children need to learn how to think and talk explicitly about mathematical properties such as the number of vertices and sides that define a figure. Composing and decomposing shapes. Children also need to explore and learn about taking shapes apart and using shapes to construct other shapes.
Why is learning about space important in preschool? ›The Benefits of Learning About Outer Space
Teaching children about outer space nurtures their natural sense of curiosity and wonder. Many children are fascinated by the vastness of the universe, and introducing conversations about things like the planets and solar system will engage and nurture their inquisitive minds.
How do you support children to understand shapes and spatial relationships? ›
Hide and Seek: To help children practice spatial relationships, hide a toy in the room, and give directions on how to find the toy using position words. For example, you might say, "Look behind the chair." Give children blocks and have them think of places to hide their blocks.
What are examples of spatial learning? ›Students who are strong in the visual-spatial learning style enjoy school activities such as art, drafting, shop, geometry, computer graphics, and computer-assisted design. They often have an excellent visual memory for details in print and in the environment.
What is spatial development in early childhood? ›Research suggests that preschoolers' early mathematics learning—including spatial-thinking skills—is related to later success in both reading and math. Spatial thinking involves children learning to navigate through their environment, to use maps and diagrams to solve problems, and to follow directions.
What are the 4 basic types of spatial relationships? ›Spatial Relationships Types. Adjacency, contiguity, overlap, and proximity are the four ways of describing the relationship between two or more entities.
Why is it important for children to learn about shapes? ›Learning shapes not only helps children identify and organize visual information, it helps them learn skills in other curriculum areas including reading, math, and science. For example, an early step in understanding numbers and letters is to recognize their shape.
Why should preschoolers learn about space? ›The Benefits of Learning About Outer Space
Teaching children about outer space nurtures their natural sense of curiosity and wonder. Many children are fascinated by the vastness of the universe, and introducing conversations about things like the planets and solar system will engage and nurture their inquisitive minds.
Studying space helps us understand our own world
Studying the cosmos gives us an important perspective shift. When we learn about what lies beyond Earth, it gives us context for understanding our own planet. Studying the other worlds of our solar system and beyond makes it clear that Earth is a precious oasis for life.
- Activity 1: Find out why the moon has craters.
- Activity 2: Bake some sparkly space rock buns.
- Activity 3: Create stargazing bottles.
- Activity 4: Make your own telescope.
- Activity 5: Make a squeezy rocket launcher.
- Activity 6: Craft a moon phases spinning toy.
- Activity 7: Make a space sensory bin.
Students will learn how to cut five basic shapes: triangle, square, rectangle, oval, and circle.