First Shape Book

by Patti Barber, Ann Montague-Smith

This delightful early learning book is the perfect way to introduce young children to basic concepts of shape, size, and appearance. The colorful images, clear captions, and probing questions will encourage children to develop early learning skills. Packed with fun and colorful games and puzzles, the First Shape Book is guaranteed to become a firm favorite on every bookshelf, encouraging children to take an active interest in their surroundings. By becoming familiar with circles, triangles, squares, and rectangles, a child will develop the skills used in writing and early math. By finding these shapes in different contexts, a child will develop the skills used in reading and writing. By identifying differences in size and between two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects, a child will develop further skills used in math. Includes introductory tips for parents and a colorful, pull-out first shapes poster. The perfect companion to the First Word Book and First Number Book.

48 pages, Hardcover

First published April 15, 2002

Reviews

[Caycee Hatchette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Personal Reaction- I thought this book was okay. I didn’t necessarily enjoy it because it wasn’t actually a story. However, it is useful and important to younger, beginning students to help them see there are a wide variety of shapes in the world.

Read aloud- I think this book would only be good to read aloud when talking about classifying different shapes. This book is set up in different shape categories, so students can see many different examples of these classifications. The rectangle page has examples such as: playing cards, birthday cards, rulers, bookshelves, etc. The different every day examples would be extremely beneficial to students just understanding shape.

Independent Reading- I think that the students reading this book would probably be preschool, mainly because most kindergarteners already know their basic shapes. Since this book is geared to preschoolers, they probably cannot read this on their own yet, so you could maybe just guide them along in their reading and ask them the questions along the bottom of the page: “Can you see any squares? Which is the longest rectangle?”

Literary Elements- Since this book isn’t a story, there aren’t literary elements that would apply but I think that you can try to have students connect the idea of shapes to their every day lives any way. An interesting incorporation to see if they understand is to ask them about different shapes around the classroom and see if they can identify them correctly.

[Felicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

good way to introduce shapes kids and how they fit into our world.