I Thought I Knew My Shapes

The boys LOVE playing with the iPad that my mother (Grandma) leaves over at our house; we play with it almost every day. They especially love Toddler Teasers, an app that announces a shape and encourages them to choose the right shape to earn "stickers" on a reward page. It seems Cammy knows pretty much all the shapes, and tries to beat Taiter to the punch. Taiter is a little more laid back. I think he knows more shapes than he is letting on, because he likes to touch all the shapes, just to hear the guy say "Try again".

To extend on the shape concept, Grandma suggested we show some paper shape cut-outs and see if the boys could identify them. Additionally, I gathered some objects with those same shapes to see if they could pair the paper and object shapes together. This actually could have been an activity for me as I combed through their toys for objects.

“Miniature feeding trough. Is that a rectangle? No. Maybe, no...what the heck is that? Okay focus, Court...”

Trying to remember the shapes that were on the app, I cut out a few colorful circles, squares, rectangles, ovals, stars, crescent moons, and hexagons over the breakfast table amidst intermittent leg-hugs and groans. (And, yes, I forgot the obvious triangle.)

Anyway, trying to get the kids at this stage to stop what they are doing and get them “criss-crossed applesauce” (I learned this is what the teachers say to sit Indian-style) on the living room floor is, well, pretty much like herding cats. Two over-stimulated, feral cats – especially after I pulled the shapes out and began:

“Okay here is a circle. Here is a rectangle. Here is a hexagon…see? It has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7…8… Okay, well, um, this is an octagon. We’ll just save that for later.” (Nice cutting, Mom.)

I was glad to see how much they did love to hold and say the shapes. We played “Guess the Shape” first and they were pretty much in line with their progress on the iPad. Then I pulled out the other objects, knowing I had a very short window of attention span for anything else.

This leads me to a side-topic. From the last two years, one of the most important lessons I have learned is that timing is everything, especially with multiples. Not just pertaining to their schedule, but also to mine. My astute, culminating observations to share, especially for the other type A’s out there? Pre-plan, don’t stress when there’s a melt-down, anything can be canceled, it will not (and does not have to) be perfect, and have a contingency plan. And maybe a glass of wine later. But I digress.

I quickly plumaged through my arsenal and began the demonstration. I compared a toy plate to the circle and a play potato chip to the oval. While Taiter was content getting my attention with his plunder, Cammy surprised me with precise placement when asked about the shape of the plate.

My lesson learned, however, is not to use a square or rectangular book for comparison, because the book will win out and you will lose your audience immediately. Choose really, boring toys. My octo, I mean hexagon, went out the window, and well, you try finding a star or moon-shaped toy!

I considered this activity a mild success. At least they seemed to enjoy it and the TV was turned off, which was a nice reprieve. After about five minutes of interest, I was left sitting on the floor with my amateur-shaped cut-outs on the floor, crinkled and torn. Cammy went off to play with a calculator featuring a propped solar panel. I was trying to be quick-witted, and wanted to ask, “Okay, what shape is that?” Seeing as how I couldn’t even figure it out, I went ahead and called it quits.