New Year’s Shapes Match for Preschoolers
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Since shapes are everywhere, children notice them, even when they don’t know what they are. Since they need to understand and recognize them, I thought this FREE hands-on New Year’s Shapes Match activity would help them during the holidays. This activity is pretty and fun and great for strengthening children’s shape knowledge, concentration, one-to-one correspondence, visual discrimination, and fine motor skills.
New Year’s Shapes Match Activity
This easy-to-prep activity includes two mats with the outline of six shapes each, including the circle, heart, hexagon, octagon, oval, pentagon, rectangle, rhombus, square, star, trapezoid, and triangle. It also includes two mats with pretty shapes and colorful Christmas pictures.
This New Year’s Shapes Match activity can be used in many ways, such as:
- Small group activity.
- Math center option.
- Writing center option.
- Take home game.
- Quiet area option.
You can get it at the end of this post.
Materials Needed:
- FREE New Year’s Shapes Match activity (found at the end of this post).
- White cardstock.
- Laminator and laminator pouches, or
- Dry-erase pockets.
- Scissors.
You only have to print all the pages using white cardstock. To make them last longer, laminate the mats, place them in dry-erase pockets, and cut out and laminate the shapes. Place the mats and cut-out shapes in different centers, and invite the children to put the New Year’s cards on top of the matching shapes on the mats.
Extension Activities
To extend the Christmas Shape Match activity, you can:
- Have the children copy the shapes on a white sheet of paper using pencils, crayons, or markers.
- Match each shape with plastic shapes.
- Match the shapes on the cards in objects around the classroom.
- Use the Christmas shape cards to create a memory game.
New Year’s Storybooks
You must include storybooks in everything you do. It is crucial to read to your preschoolers every day. Stories provide children with many benefits for their learning process because they help them develop their imagination, learn vocabulary, understand concepts, and develop their pre-reading and pre-writing skills, among other benefits.
These are some excellent books you can use during New Year’s celebration. You can find them all at your local library, used bookstores, and Amazon. If you want to add some to your collection permanently, click on the pictures to go directly to Amazon through my links.
- The Night Before New Year’s by Natasha Wing tells the story of a family determined to stay up until midnight on New Year’s Eve and stocked up on sparkly streamers, festive party hats, card games, and cupcakes.
- Happy New Year, Spot! by Eric Hill. Spot is a cute dog who isn’t old enough to stay up until midnight but finds a way to celebrate the New Year early with his family.
- Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution by Pat Miller is about a little squirrel who knows New Year’s Day is excellent for making resolutions but doesn’t know what this means. She visits the forest to learn about it and helps her friends get started on theirs.
- We All Celebrate the New Year by Hannah Swift is a picture book about cat breeds and traditions worldwide.
- Happy New Year! by Clara Coleman explores how New Year’s is celebrated in different cultures worldwide. It features colorful illustrations, accessible text, and relatable characters that make it easy for children to learn about holidays that may be unfamiliar to them.
Pin It for Later
If you are in a rush and don’t have time to read the post and download the printable but want to save it for later, pin it to New Year’s or the math board on Pinterest to have it available when needed.
I hope you enjoy this free New Year’s Shapes Match activity and help your preschoolers learn or review their shapes.
Don’t forget to grab your printable by clicking on the link below.
Be happy, safe, and creative. I wish you well.
Love,
P.D. Please let me know if you like this activity. I aim to help you in any way I can, and I’m not too fond of anything better than posting something that you might find helpful.
