We started this blog to serve as a forum to share and discuss creative ideas!  It is our mission to inspire your creativity, while also providing you with quality time-saving products.  That is why we are constantly working on fun-to-use themes and how-to ideas!  Have you come up with a creative way to use Shapes products?  If so, we’d love to feature your creative idea here!  Please submit ideas via e-mail at info@shapesetc.com, or call 800.888.6580.  Thank you!

We strive to keep the “Fun” in Fundamentals!

Susan DeMuth
President/Artist

In the age of “teaching to the test,” we have to remind ourselves it’s student “learning” we want to achieve. Tests are simply a measurement tool. Brain research is telling us that active learning allows children to use both sides of their brain. So, sing, dance, create some shaped books, write stories, write a script, make puppets, produce a play, or make shaped flash cards and create learning games…(Whew! I know that was a run-on sentence, but I want to give YOU lots of ideas!) Tie these activities to the content you want students to “LEARN.” There is an old Chinese proverb that says it best:

“Tell me, I hear. Show me, I see. Involve me, I understand.”

I am the artist and also the owner of Shapes Etc. I learned to read with “Dick, Jane and Sally.” Well, that was the plan. I was in 3rd grade before I truly learned to read (spelling still eludes me). I was the dyslexic A.D.D. kid, daydreaming in your class. “Earth to Susan…She is smart, but she isn’t applying herself!” A.D.D. was often called “lazy” back then, and as long as a child was not disruptive, they often just drifted. Luckily, today we recognize different learning styles. In the 1960s, it was straight rows, SRAs and anxiety ridden days for those of us who didn’t fit the mold. I cringe when I hear very creative teachers say “I can’t do the fun stuff anymore. I have to teach to the test.” Now more than ever, you HAVE to do the “fun stuff.” Hands-on projects will engage kids with different learning styles…It’s a great way to reach the “daydreamers!”

Creative projects encourage
creative and divergent thinking.

Write Tall Tales in a TALL book. Write short stories in a short book. Be silly sometimes. Laugh. Invent things. Celebrate success by showcasing student work and invite friends and families. Creative projects promote creative problem solving. Twenty First Century survival skills require kids to be active, lifelong, creative thinkers. This is the generation who will retire from jobs that haven’t even been invented yet. Ironically, we are at an age where Public Education is slashing the arts out of our budgets with one hand, and the other hand is pointing at us saying, “students need to be divergent, creative thinkers!” Teachers are caught in the crossfire! Remember, tests just measure learning. Involved active learners will retain more information, and better yet, they will want to know more. Problem solving and digging out new knowledge REQUIRE higher level thinking skills.

You CAN teach creatively and still tie it in to the content you are testing. Let Shapes Etc. help you. We want to be the catalyst for YOUR creativity! We have been making time-saving pre-cut “shapes” since 1984.

Here are quick and easy ideas:

Shaped flash cards
Math game parts
Shaped books
Learning games
Diorama starters

Tie in fun projects that reinforce the concepts from the content area you’re teaching. For example, when studying frogs, give the students a sheet of a frog notepad and create a diorama of a pond biome. Make shaped books of frog facts. Hop into poetry and write “Ooey Gooey Pond Poems.” Write vocabulary words for a “word bank” on frogs. Laminate frog-shaped flash cards for spelling words, vocabulary words or task cards. Sing your favorite frog songs. Make frog craft projects. Decorate frog bookmarks or a frog pencil holder. Write “It Isn’t Easy Being Green” essays on frog computer paper. Track success with frog-shaped personal incentive charts. Reinforce good behavior with frog incentive stickers. Read about the adventures of “Frog and Toad,” then make frog and toad puppets with craft sticks and wiggle eyes. Use a brown marker to color spots on the toad. Compare and contrast frogs and toads…Oh yeah, you have the idea! Now do it with apples, alligators, whales, zebras, etc.

As the designer of Shapes Etc. products,
I rely on feedback from the field.

“What do teachers want?”; “What new ways can we think of to use our products?” I spend most of my days in front of my computer designing things, writing “how-to” idea sheets, planning mailings and working on day-to-day operational issues. Nothing brightens my day more than getting feedback and new creative ideas from people like you!

We are in an age where the economy is in a state of flux, the “Standards” seem to dominate and even intimidate perfectly good educators. Dollars are being reallocated away from education, No Child Left Behind “stuff” is causing us to reassess how we teach. What’s that old saying? “The more things change the more they stay the same.” So we are going back to the basal readers and back to the basics with certified viable curriculum. Together, we can put the FUN back in teaching “fundamentals,” and also offer some creative alternative activities for kids. Activities that will help prepare their creative minds for 21st Century challenges.

The only constant is change!