Lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations, worksheets
Early Years
Year R
Teach Reception children about manipulating, composing and decomposing shapes with this ten-lesson resource full of EYFS shapes activities.
Lesson aims
Week 1
- Select shapes that are suitable for a particular purpose
- Rotate shapes to fit and create models and pictures
- Manipulate shapes to develop spatial reasoning skills
- Use informal language and analogies to describe arrangements of shapes
- Select, rotate and manipulate shapes
Week 2
- Compose a shape and recognise that a shape has other shapes within it
- Decompose a shape and recognise that a shape has other shapes within it
- Select, rotate and manipulate shapes
- Recognise that a shape can have other shapes within it, just as numbers can
Key questions
Week 1
- What shape do you need now?
- Which shape do you need next?
- Why have you used this shape?
- What is this shape?
- Is this the same shape?
- How can you make that shape fit?
- What will fit in there?
- What shape fits?
Week 2
- What shape are you making?
- What can you split this shape into?
- What shape will you make when you fold it in half?
- What new shapes have you made?
- What is the picture?
- What is missing?
- What shape can you see?
- What is the same about these shapes?
- What shapes can you split it into?
- What do you need to do so it fits?
EYFS shapes activities for first lesson
Start by recapping and checking retrieval of 2D and 3D shapes, their names and their properties. Explain that you want to build a model train using 3D shapes (these could be shape models or cardboard boxes, cylinders etc).
Start with the engine at the front of the train and ask children to help you select the best shapes for different parts of the model. Discuss why one shape is a better choice than another.
Look at the pizza outline worksheet and explore how 2D shapes can be selected to represent different toppings.
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