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This post has been co-written with Ben Wolfson, a full-time educator and assistant principal in the USA.
These snowman shape puzzles are a great way to teach your students real life 2D shapes as well as the mechanics of building snowmen.
Winter is a great alternative theme for your classroom than Christmas. Not all of your students will celebrate Christmas, and not all families will have the resources to create the perfect Hollywood Christmas that is often talked about in the classroom. Having a preschool winter theme is something that everyone can relate to and anything that relates to snow and snowmen will be an instant hit with your students.
Why Bother With Shapes?
In a curriculum that seems packed to the rafters, geometry is always one area of math that gets left to the end of the year. However, this is an oversight as there are many useful skills that should be on your lesson plan on shapes for preschoolers. These include the ability to classify objects in terms of different properties, learning to draw with precision (think about teaching the difference between a square and rectangle) and building their mathematical vocabulary.
Preparing Snowman Real Life 2D Shapes Puzzles
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The best part of this preschool shape activity is that you simply download, print and cut the puzzle pieces out. You only need one set for your classroom and it’s a good idea to laminate the pieces so they’ll stand up to multiple uses.
Extending The Snowman Shape Game
This winter theme preschool shape activity teaches all of the skills listed above. The base game involves students taking a full set of the snowman cards and finding the groups of three that match to make a snowman (e.g. finding the head, arms and body that are circles to make the circle snowman). To extend this lesson plan on shapes for preschoolers, try some of these real life 2D shapes activities:
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Group by similarities – looking at similar properties of shapes is one of the main reasons to teach geometry to preschoolers. Take all eight versions of one body type and ask students to put them into groups. You can start by giving them categories for each group (shapes with round edges and shapes with no round edges), before asking them to create their own categories. Be sure to have them justify where they put each shape.
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Create oddball snowmen – once students have mastered the game and can create the snowmen independently, challenge them to create a unique set of oddball snowmen where no part of each snowman can have the same shape. For example, they might have one that has a triangle head, a square arm section and a diamond body. The challenge becomes to use up all the cards to make eight oddballs.
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Fastest finder first – finally, if you’re looking for a little competition, gather a group of three students and spread all the cards out in the middle of the group. Say the name of one of the shapes and the students race to find a snowman body part that matches the shape. You can use this to teach good sportsmanship as well as increasing student speed and accuracy of shape identification.
There are 5 activities in this pack focusing on 12 shapes (circle, square, triangle, rectangle, star, heart, trapezoid, rhombus, octagon, hexagon, pentagon and oval).
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Memory Match Cards – print, cut apart the cards and place face down. Turn over 2 cards at a time trying to find a matching pair of shapes.
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Shape Hunt Worksheets – find, trace and color in the matching shapes.
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Real Life Object Puzzles – print and cut apart the cards. Match the 2d shape face to the shape name and real-life object to form the complete snowman.
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Shape Match File Folder Game – print and laminate the page with the shape borders and stick into the file folder. Print, laminate and cut out the snowman face shapes. Place a Velcro dot at the back of each face and in the shape spaces for your student to match.
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Shape Shadow Clip Cards – print and cut apart the cards. Provide some wooden pegs for your student to mark the shadow that matches the 2d shaped snowman face.
This winter, learning 2D shapes is SNOW problem! Check out the Snowman Shape Activity Pack here.
Fun Books For Winter:
Other Printables for Your Winter Lesson Plan:
1) Penguin Sight Words Write the Room – Kids will love this printable penguin theme pre-primer sight words write the room activity! It’s perfect for a winter literacy center in kindergarten and even first grade.
2) Penguin and Fish Letter Matching– Printable penguin and fish themed game to pair up upper and lowercase letters.
3) Counting to 20 with Ice Skates – Kindergarten and 1st-grade students will work on counting to 20 and one to one correspondence in this free ice skating activity. Use this as a fun winter math center in your classroom or as a hands-on printable twenty frame game for your homeschool.
4) Snowman Ten Frame Mats – Students in preschool to 1st grade will practice counting, making 10, one to one correspondence, subitizing and writing numbers with these snowman ten frame mats. Use this printable as a fun winter math center in your classroom or as a hands-on addition activity for your homeschooling kids.
5) Winter Printable Worksheets Pack – Your kids will love this 50-page winter packet full of fun activities to help them practice literacy, math and fine motor skills. Preschool and kindergarten students will cut, color, count and much more. This activity pack is perfect for indoor leaning time during the cold winter months.
6) Winter Freeze Number Puzzle Strips – 2 printable winter theme puzzles to practice number order from 1 to 20.
7) Snowball Sorting – Sort out numbers from letters or uppercase letters from lowercase letters in this winter-themed activity.
Fun Books About Shapes:
Other Shape Printables You’ll Love:
1) 2D Shape Ice Cream Cones – In this preschool math center, they will do shape matching between the real-life 2d shapes on the scoops and the labeled cones. It’s the perfect summer math printable!
2) Truck Wheel Shape Matching – Your students will love this fun transportation theme math center that you can use any time of the year!
3) Farm Shape Mats – This printable activity will help your child learn shapes and develop fine motor skills. It can be used with playdough, pom poms, dot markers etc.
4) Dinosaur Shapes Roll and Graph –Preschool dinosaur-themed dice game to help with learning shapes and counting to 5.
5) Alligator Shape Bubble Hunt – Spin the wheel to find out which shape to color in!
Fun Classroom Items for Winter:
Browse Other Popular Math Printables:
1) Parking Cars Tracing Lines – More than 10 different tracing line patterns to choose from, all of which help with pencil control.
2) Scarecrow Arrange By Size – 3 different scarecrow-themed image sets that they will arrange from smallest to biggest.
3) Bumblebee Addition Game – Solve the sum and help the bee land on the correct flower!
4) Farm Shapes Mats – Use playdough, pompoms, stickers etc to learn 2D shapes.
5) Popsicle Stick Number Formation – Kids will love forming the numbers 1 to 10 when ice cream and popsicles are involved!
6) Valentines Printable Worksheets Pack – 50 pages of mixed literacy and math activities.
7) Zoo Animals Number Puzzle Strips – Complete these cute puzzles and learn the numbers 1 to 20.
8) Counting Colorful Bugs – This printable book will help kids count to 10 while also learning about color words.
9) Humpty Dumpty Numbers – In this printable game, your students will practice number recognition using 1 dice or simple addition when using 2 dice.
10) Build A Number Santa – Match the number to the correct number word, tally mark and domino to form a Santa Claus
