Your child learns so much through play. Without a formal approach to ‘teaching’ your child will be absorbing information about their world as they explore materials, discover techniques and develop skills.
Along with reading together, helping your child explore shapes and make marks will support your child to understand their world, form letters and to build their confidence.
Exploring and understanding shapes can help your child’s development in the following ways:
Verbal communication
Try to describe your environment without using a shape description? Our world is made up of shapes and so it is helpful for our children to be able to describe and understand what they see and feel.
Logic Skills.
Shapes begin to teach the concept of same and different. Children can start to group objects together which is important when they learn how to count, add and subtract.
Playing and exploring shapes helps your child to be able to sort and recognise similarities and differences and this also helps them to develop their analytical skills.
Practice for numbers and letters.
Letters are made up of shapes, so by exploring shapes children gain a better understanding of how to form letters. As they start to learn about shapes they start to learn about the number of sides a shape has and this, in turn, supports their understanding of what counting is and why it’s helpful.
Here are some simple steps to help your child read and write;
- Start with exploring shapes and marks
- Describe the world around you
- Encourage mark making
- Create with shapes
- Create your own shapes
- Recognise differences and similarities
- Match, sort and count
- Play with shapes
- Make marks with friends
- Experiment with new shapes
- Count together
- Have fun together
- Read together
The award-winning Creation Station programme of ‘Shimmy Shimmy Shapes’ is designed to support you and your child through fun, hands-on creative journeys of exploration, discovery and development. Creative activities can help your child develop a wide range of essential early years skills.
Click to find your local fun kids classes and activities
If we don’t have a Creation Station in your area, and you or someone you know would love to run your own fun and flexible creative business click for information about running your own franchise.
