Hands on! That says it all for me. I’m constantly looking for new and engaging ways to interest my students and get their ‘hands on’ items that will help them learn. So when the folks at Learning Resources sent me their new Dive into Shapes, I knew my students were going to go crazy over it.
My little guys can never seem to get enough fine motor work, and if I can couple fine motor and working with shapes then I’m one happy teacher. Plus, look at all those bright fun colors. I have to admit, I couldn’t resist diving in and working with these fun manipulatives. (It was actually a little bit addictive to tell you the truth.)
Dive into Shapes comes with a ton of colorful curves and straight plastic pieces including connecting balls. These coupled with the playing cards included, had my kinder friends loving this activity during our learning stations. The easily manipulated the pieces and quickly got into the groove of replicating the different shapes on the cards.
The cards provided just enough guidance for those that needed it, but also differentiated and extended learning by offering challenges beyond the basic shapes. As an instructor, I could quickly assess to see which of my students could easily replicate the pictures and identify those that really needed more practice.
Since we had been studying 3D shapes as well, this activity was especially fun for students when I challenged them to make a cylinder, sphere, cube or cone (that was a tricky one).
They loved the bright colors to make patterns and come up with their own designs and creations or just work off from some of the ones on the cards. This was definitely one of the quietest stations this go around as they seemed to engaged and were really concentrating on getting the pieces to fit ‘just so.’
If you’d like to find out more about Dive Into Shapes, just click on the picture below to take you to the information page for this product. The entire box comes with all the pieces you see below. These were enough for three of my students to work with during one of my stations.
But wait, I’m not done, because Learning Resources is also letting me give a set of these fun shape manipulatives away to one of you. All you have to do is enter below.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
So hurry up and enter today! I just know your kiddos are going to love these.
So hurry up and enter today! I just know your kiddos are going to love these.
Your pictures are amazing!!
Exactly what i was looking for- not toothpicks & gumdrops!!! Thanks for sharing!
Love the cards!
Jennifer
First Grade Blue SKies
Ooooh, a NON EDIBLE version! As enjoyable as pretzel rods and marshmallows are, this set would would last much longer, and be revisited over and over again. Thanks for the chance, and for the informative review!
Michaele
Thanks for the chance! My class would love these.