The goal of the Collect the Shapes game is for students to recognize certain shapes and colors. Gather several wooden or plastic blocks of various shapes and colors, such as cubes, stars, triangles and circles. Scatter the blocks on the floor. Hand each child a bucket. Call out shapes, colors or colored shapes that the students must find and put into their buckets. In addition to teaching students how to differentiate between shapes, this is also a good exercise in cleaning up.
Test your preschooler's ability to distinguish between shapes drawn on paper and 3-dimensional objects. Distribute a printout of the basic shapes, such as circles, square, triangles and rectangles. Display real-world objects that match these shapes, such as a basketball, picture frame, orange traffic cone and book. Share one of the objects with the class and ask which shape it corresponds to on the paper.
Color Cleanup is an effective way to teach colors and cleanup to young children. Assign a different color to each student. When you call, "Action," each child must collect as many toys of his assigned color in a basket. Give the students a few minutes for this activity. When children are finished, have them count aloud how many objects they collected. To add a shape dimension to this game, ask students to share an example of a circle, square or rectangle from their toys.
Have youngsters create their own masterpieces with this clever shape art activity. Cut up various colored shapes from construction paper. Effective shapes to use are triangles, squares, stars, rectangles and circles. Place the shapes into a container. Pass out a piece of blank foam board or chip board to each student. Have students select a shape from the container and use that to start their art work. Instruct them to glue the shapes anywhere on the boards. Explain that the shape must be a part of a real-world object. For example, a square shape could be the window to a house. Have the students present their pictures to the class.