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Discovering Shapes

Does your local park have a sandbox? Do you visit the beach in the summer? A patch of sand is a great place for you and your child to pretend you are archeologists exploring in the desert.

Bring different shaped objects, such as wooden blocks, balls, small pans, and plastic bowls. Have your child look away while you disguise the identity of one of the objects, by digging a hole and burying it so that only one part, or one surface, remains visible. Then, ask your child what shape he or she can see. Is it a circle, a square, a rectangle, a triangle, etc. What do they think the object might be?

Next, let your child remove a layer of sand. How is the shape different this time? Is the identity of the object still a mystery? Finally, have your budding archaeologist dig to discover the secret object buried in the sand. Was your child surprised? Now it’s your child’s turn to bury something for you to try to identify.A patch of sand is a great place for you and your child to pretend you are archeologists exploring in the desert.

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Related Game

Chirp Shapes Up

In this game kids click things that look like certain shapes and when they've found them all, the shapes come to life along with the characters.

Related Books

When a Line Bends . . . A Shape Begin, by Rhonda Gowler Greene .

The Shape of Me and Other Stuff, by Dr. Seuss.