Storytime Anytime-Shapes

Books are an excellent way to introduce young children to important concepts such as shapes, colors, numbers, and ABC's.  I know that shapes may not seem like the most exciting theme for storytime. Especially if you are thinking that a story book about shapes is just going to be a series of simple pictures and the words "this is a circle", "this is a a square", "this is a rectangle", etc. written underneath them.  Fortunately for kids and parents, there are a number of picture books about shapes that are fun, beautifully illustrated, and do not resemble a set of flashcards.

Children's author/illustrator, Ellen Stoll Walsh, has written some of my favorite books to use during storytime. Her trio of mouse books (Mouse Shapes, Mouse Paints, and Mouse Count) teach simple preschool themes, but do so in a playful and engaging way.

Virtual Book Club for Kids, which always has fun book-related ideas, featured Ellen Stoll Walsh for a month and posted 12 activities inspired by Mouse Paints, Mouse Shapes, and Mouse Count. If you are looking to help your little one learn colors, numbers, or shapes in a fun way check out Walsh's books and give some of these easy activities a try.

Most children are captivated by bright colors. I guess that they are similar to sharks in that way (and also in their insatiable appetites). Michael Hall's bold and graphic illustrations make his books easy winners with young readers. In Perfect Square, Hall shows all of the ways a simple, construction paper square can be torn, wrinkle, cut, or folded to create a fountain, garden, or mountain. I don't know about you, but I am not always feeling creative and/or ambitious so I love it when a book basically spells out an activity for me to do with my child. All you have to do is take a bunch of colored squares and let your child rip, crumple, fold, cut, and glue to see what they can create.

Another one of Hall's books featuring a specific shape is My Heart is Like a Zoo. Since all of the animals in this book are created using hearts I usually save this book for around Valentine's Day. As with Perfect Square, coming up with a craft to go with My Heart is Like a Zoo is a no-brainer. Cut out multiple hearts in various sizes to create one or more of the animals. 

In Shape by Shape by Suse MacDonald and Go, Shapes, Go! by Denise Fleming a new shape is added on each page to create a mystery animal. I love picture books that encourage interaction and little ones will have a blast guessing what animal will eventually be depicted.

Most shape books are very simple since they are aimed at young children who are just learning their shapes. Circle, Square, Moose by Kelly Bingham is a quirky, humorous story that will have older kids laughing too. In this sequel to Z is for Moose Zebra's goofy best friend, Moose, has decided this time to invade a book about shapes (because he loves shapes). Of course, Zebra spends the entire book trying to repair the damage done by the over-exuberant Moose. If you want to learn more about Z is for Moose and Circle, Square, Moose check out the Moose page of Bingham's website.

The illustrations for both books are done by the spectacular, Caldecott winning artist, Paul O. Zelinsky. In case you could not tell, I love love love love Zelinsky. It amazes me how recognizable Zelinsky's artwork is, but at the same time each of the books he illustrates has a unique feel.

So, another really easy activity to go along with your shape books is to cut out a bunch of random shapes and let little ones create pictures. Each of the books I highlighted should give the kids plenty of inspiration. After listening to Shape by Shape by Denise Fleming most of my storytime kids wanted to make monkeys. However, there were also people, flowers, cars, and houses and a couple of kids just glued all of the shapes on the paper in a crazy hurricane of color.

Classic tangrams are a fun and easy way for kids (and adults) of all ages to play with shapes. If you have never heard of a tangram it is an ancient Chinese puzzle that uses seven basic shapes, called seven pieces of cleverness, that can be arranged and rearranged to make countless designs. There is actually a website called Tangram Channel that has oodles of tangram puzzles of varying levels of difficulty that you can do online.There are also tangrams that you can print and cut out and even instructions on how to draw your own tangram although you would probably want to save that activity for older kids. Below is a picture of a few simple tangram puzzles along with the seven pieces of cleverness that I printed and laminated. Sorry that the picture is sideways, but you get the idea. Some of my younger kids needed help from mom or dad, but all of them were fascinated by the tangrams. The best part is that tangrams are super cheap and easy to recreate at home.