StM News

This week in the STeaM Lab with Ms. Natalie Ott, our George Cottage Threes dove into Shape Stories — a book that shows how circles, squares, lines, and squiggles aren’t just shapes, but stories waiting to be told! After reading, students practiced using Play-Doh to make familiar shapes like triangles, hearts, and squares … and more adventurous polygons like pentagons, hexagons, and rhombuses. 

Something magical happens when little hands mold dough: Play-Doh helps strengthen fine motor skills — squeezing, rolling, cutting, flattening — all of which prepare them for writing and other everyday tasks. It also builds spatial reasoning (recognizing and comparing shapes), boosts language and math skills (naming shapes, counting, comparing), and supports creativity and problem-solving. Plus, working together lets them share, take turns, and enjoy every discovery.