toothpicks!

One of Katherine's little friends is learning about shapes in kindergarten. I have, sadly, been neglecting them. Not the basics. In fact, one of Katherine's first words was "gurcle" (aka "circle). She knows a star, oval, square, etc. but none of the fancier ones. So I did some brainstorming and broke out some toothpicks, plopped her near the counter (I was doing something in the kitchen at the time) and told her to make some shapes.

Before learning about octagons I had her "play". She began with some triangles and moved on to squares. But then I dropped one of my two planned big questions on her: what shape could you never make with toothpicks. Of course I received the standard, "I don't know." But then she thought for a minute. "Circle!" "That's right. Why?" "Because it is not bendy." Bendy - so cute. So we talked about how toothpicks are straight, but there are no straight lines in a circle. Go Katie! She played with them some more and then I dropped bomb number two.

After making a square, I asked her to make a rectangle. Now maybe no one else will be as surprised as I was that she looked at it for a moment, moved one side over and added two more picks to the top and bottom. But I really was surprised! I thought for certain that she would get stumped like so many of us do by, well, thinking inside the box. But she did it. Clever little girl.