Artlink

• Unique educational toy for stimulating creative thinking
• Young learners discover Art and Math through play

Children are eager learners and must be left alone to discover certain things for themselves - ShapeSphereS is an exciting new educational toy that fills such a need perfectly!  When left to explore the  countless creative possibilities that ShapeSphereS lays before them, children instantly begin to use their lively imaginations to create all kinds of interesting shapes in color combinations of their own choosing.   Just watch them; they'll come up with ideas that many adults wouldn't think of!

There is no wrong way to assemble ShapeSphereS.  Every shape a child creates helps them to discover the creative process for themselves.  As one shape suggests another, children will quickly begin to build all kinds of images, including some that resemble things, like an ice cream cone, or an animal, for example.  Whether the image a child creates is recognizable, or abstract, children are immediately rewarded with a strong sense of accomplishment and success, which in turn helps them to feel confident about their creative abilities. 

Wedges and discs - components in a set of ShapeSphereS

3 Discs

12 X 30°  wedges

8   X 45°  wedges

6   X 60°  wedges

Each of the three wedge sizes in a set of ShapeSphereS are packaged in 2 colors, a primary color with its complimentary secondary color - red with green, yellow with violet, and blue with orange.  Black and white sets are also available, with each wedge size in those two colors.

ShapeSphereS is full of surprises!  When a set of ShapeSphereS is opened for the first time, pull all of the wedges off the central disc, mix them up, then reassemble wedges of any size and color back onto the disc in any order you choose.  A disc does not have to be filled completely.  Gaps can be left as part of a design, to represent a mouth, for example.  This initial exercise is important because it immediately introduces students to an endless variety of creative possibilities waiting to be discovered.

As students become familiar with ShapeSphereS, they are instantly encouraged to experiment with color, color relationships, and wedge sizes, and soon come to realize the number of wedges of a particular size it takes to fill a disc - twelve 30° wedges, eight 45°  wedges, six 60° wedges.   Once a student learns that a circle, in this case a disc, has a circumference of 360° , they quickly grasp the concept of degrees as a measurement and will start to figure out the combination of different wedge sizes it takes to build a shape.  This then leads into math fundamentals - addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, around which lots of math exercises can be thought up.  For example:

If four 45° wedges are assembled onto a disc, how many 30° wedges will it take to fill the disc completely?  Once a student has figured out the answer, they can then assemble the number of 30° wedges they came up with to find if they were right.

Expect the unexpected with ShapeSphereS!  Once a shape is created, students can explore how the shape will move.  Different shapes move in different ways.  Some will roll in a straight line, others will zig-zag, while others will move in a circle.  There are shapes that will rock back and forth, and some that will spin.  Some spinning shapes will even flip over and spin upside down!