Early years shape

Barrier games build on children's natural desire to combine block play with small world items.

As children move around an obstacle course, adults can model positional language, encourage children to describe their movement themselves and create their own course.

Children explore characteristics of shapes and use both everyday and mathematical language to describe them, talk about positions and solve problems

In this activity, children have the opportunity to wrap some toys and to measure and discuss the size of the box or wrapping paper that they will need.

This task provides a real-life context for children to compare capacities in order to choose the biggest container for their lemonade.

When tidying away toys in this activity, children will use their counting skills to check that all the toys are in the box.

In this task, children put their hands into a bag and describe what shape they think they can feel and why.

Comparing the wrapped presents in this activity will give children the chance to explore and discuss weight, including the idea that large objects aren't necessarily the heaviest.