Hopping Around: Circles

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

• Pick out the group of circles, and ask the students if they know what the shape is.
• Explain to your students that the shape is a circle, which has no sides.
• Hand out one circle to each student.
• Ask the students how circles are different from the other shapes, and introduce the term round, or shaped like a circle.
• Have the students trace around the shape with their fingers starting at the top of the circle, and then practice drawing one in the air.

Guided Practice

• Hand out the sheets of green, red, and white paper, glue, scissors, frog headband stencils, and strips for the headbands.
• Tell the students to find the biggest circle and trace around it for the frog's head.
• Direct them to cut it out and paste it to the headband. Encourage them to start at the top when tracing around the circle.
• Have the students select the medium sized circle next to make the outer eye and the mouth of the frog.
• Instruct your students to trace and cut two medium sized circles from green paper and one from red paper.
• Ask your students to paste the green ones on top of the head to make the outer eye.
• Have them cut the red one into two and paste one half for the mouth.
• Finally, tell the students to choose the small circle to make the inner eye and trace around this on the white paper. Have your students cut and paste in the middle of the outer eye.
• For the tongue, have the students roll or accordion fold a strip of red paper and paste it to the mouth.
• Measure and staple the headbands to fit each child's head.

Independent working time

• Have the students decorate their frog headbands by drawing their own circles or by putting sticker dots onto the frog face.