I consider it a good day when someone asks me a question that I can answer through a blog post. Recently, a question showed up, asking about the paper punch-out shapes that FreshCutCrafts creates.

Learning Shapes Bundle also STEAM Shapes Learning Shop

Let me start out by saying that I have no financial ties with these products. Trish Witkowski -who, hopefully, you all know from her Fold of the Week series -is the designer for all of the products in her extensive, colorful and delightful FreshCutCrafts line of packets. I did, however, have many working conversations with Trish as she created the paper punch-out shapes that I’m going to write about here. What came out of our conversations were products that focused on geometric and relationship-aware shapes.

I love the shapes that we have all been taught in school. I not only love them individually, but also for how well they play together to make patterns.

Making patterns and deciphering patterns is not just an art-skill or a math skill. It’s a whole-life skill. Having the ability to recognize patterns can reinterpret that which may seem random in life into seeing things as at continuation of a pattern formed from all that has gone before it. I can wax lyrically about the benefits of integrating pattern awareness into one’s psyche, or you can just take my word for it. I vote for the latter. Now back to these punch-out shapes.

The packets in Trish’s Learning Shapes Bundle check all of my boxes. They are colorful, sturdy, easy to handle, inexpensive and generally can be found on Amazon or on the FreshCutCrafts site, often without shipping charges. I go through piles and piles of pages of these shapes when I work with classes and when I want to create gorgeous geometric designs on flat paper and on dimensional objects.

Specifically, these are packets of 8.5 x 11-inch card weight papers that have perforations so that a large variety of shapes can be punched out of the papers. They glue down nicely with glue sticks or a judicious amount of white glue. The three themed packets I’m featuring here are the tangram shapes, the pattern block shapes, and the fractions shapes.

I use these punch-outs generously on my own when I want to play around with geometry and embellishments. I’ve started to design a nice little line of t-shirts using these shapes. More about this in my next post.

Some student work, decorating the cover of their handmade book

Since I used to spend way too much time cutting out shapes for students to use, I’m thrilled Trish’s punch-out shapes are classroom friendly. I present them to students in a thoughtful manner, and the kids use them to carefully make borders, bookmarks, and designs. After watching children for decades, I can confidently say that young children have an intuitive connection to symmetry, patterns, and balanced design, and, for the most part they (95% ?) naturally tend towards making patterns. Anything we adults can do to encourage this essential talent is simply the best. The punch out shapes make it easy for students to make wonderful imagery while encouraging relationship thinking.

There’s my custom made Zhen Xian Bao folder in the background. It keeps my punched-out shapes organized

Generally, when I am working on a project I punch out all the shapes in my packet and organize them by shape, not by color. While even first graders seem to have no problem releasing the shapes from the pages, every teacher knows that there are a few kids in their classes who would love nothing more than to sit and punch out shapes. Others can help organize. Less work for the teacher, more ownership for the students!

Another view of my ZXB that holds shapes and keeps them organized

There are a few more notes about each of the packets that I want to point out.

Made with shapes from the Tangram packet

The tangram packet is not just for using tangrams in the traditional way. With so many pages of the shapes to punch out there are all sorts of symmetric designs and geometric patterns to make. The one above references an Italian geometric church pavement that I learned from my friend Clarissa Grandi.

Tangram shapes, with colored pencil embellishments

Since we’re using paper here, it’s fun to use colored pencils to make anything you do a bit more decorative.

A special treat in the tangram packet is that Trish has included an extra generous amount of the smallest triangle of the tangram group. This is helpful because if you run out of a certain tile during your pattern making, you can use a number of the small ones to recreate any of the larger tiles.

From the Pattern Block packet: Sometimes I like to make carefully considered cuts into the shapes

I absolutely love making designs with the Pattern Block Shapes. An extra treat that Trish included in this packet is the half-circle. Traditional pattern blocks do not have circles, but they are oh so nice to have in this set! I’ve totally loved the way I’ve seen kids use them.

From the Fraction Shapes packet

The fraction shapes (formerly called MATHshapes) (or maybe they are called MATHshapes and were formerly Fraction shapes?) are my favorite of the group, probably because I have used this method of making designs with students for so many years. I’ve written about these quite a bit in the past. Take a look at Enjoying Math Shapes – Playful Bookbinding and Paper Works and MathShapes Wall Art – Playful Bookbinding and Paper Works for some big eye candy. Like working with wooden building blocks, playing with these shapes can help develop a sense of fractional relationships while making artful creations.

Finally, if you are a teacher and would like some materials to get you started exploring the many opportunities that these packets allow, Trish has you covered! She’s made a series of activity books for each packet, which are spiral bound so that you can make handouts for students to use. I’m going to look through one of these activity books in the video below.

Find everything at STEAM Shapes Learning Shop

Published by Paula Beardell Krieg

Visual artist Paula Beardell Krieg has been teaching bookmaking to students in schools, to teachers and to other artists since the mid 1980's. View all posts by Paula Beardell Krieg