SEVEN

OBSERVING SEVEN WITH YOUNG CHILDREN

Observing seven includes exploring geometric expressions of seven, i.e., heptagons, hectograms; 
polyhedrons such as a heptagonal pyramid and a heptagonal prism.

INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITIES

1. Have a table with natural and other characteristic objects for children to look at and gently touch. Make a ceremony of the placement of any new object or its picture to help create interest (e.g., rainbow).
2. “What do you know about seven?” (e.g., seven days in a week, seven continents)
3. Play “I Spy with My Little Eye,” finding heptagons and heptagrams throughout the room.
4. Challenge children to make heptagons and heptagrams with their bodies.
5. Have seven children sit in chairs placed at the vertices of a heptagon shape and help them hold a length of yarn to delineate the shape. Invite other children to lie down on the floor under the heptagon and look up at it.
   

LIFE SKILLS

• Sort a collection of heptagons according to size or color.
• Thread seven beads (white) onto a pipe cleaner or length of string and fashion into jewelry.
• Stitch around edges of heptagonal cards.
• Cut along a heptagonal path.
• Encourage children to learn their seven-digit phone numbers.

SENSORIAL EXPLORATION

• Hang a mobile with heptagons from the ceiling.
• Invite finger-tracing of various heptagon and hexagram shapes.
• Place tape to create a heptagon on floor; invite children to various exercises (e.g., walking, sitting). Consider average length of children’s legs so that seven can sit here and reform the shape with their legs.
• Draw heptagons in a tray of sand or shaving cream.
• “Draw” heptagons with your finger in the palm of child’s hand or on his back.
• Feel sandpaper heptagon and sandpaper numeral seven; make crayon rubbings of the same.
• Hold heptagonal pyramids and heptagonal prisms of various sizes, one at a time, in two hands. (Patterns are available for making various polyhedrons from paper or card stock.)
• Explore bubble-making with various open-form polyhedrons: a heptagonal pyramid and a heptagonal prism.
• Explore patterning properties of heptagons.
• Push or pull a seven-pound weight in a box or wagon.
  

MATH

• Explore a basket containing seven of various items (e.g., seven beads, seven pencils, seven apples).
• Name items that the child can find and bring to you on a tray (“Please bring me seven…”).
• Display currency units of choice (e.g., seven dollars, seven euros, seven yen, seven pesos).
• Count various objects in room by seven. (Counting and skip counting songs are available.)
• Display and work with units of measure (e.g., seven ounces, seven pounds, seven inches, seven feet, seven meters, seven minutes, seven hours).
  

LANGUAGE

• Read aloud picture books that harmonize with the number seven theme (e.g., Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young; A Rainbow of My Own by Don Freeman; All the Colors of the Rainbow by Allan Fowler; What Makes Music? and What Makes a Rainbow?—both Magic Ribbon Books by Betty Ann Schwartz).
• Invite child to the nature table and engage child in conversation about the objects on display; have child write about the objects (teacher may write child’s words); invite child to “read” his story to his friends.
• Trace within heptagonal stencils and around heptagonal forms (pre-writing skill).
• Trace printed, broken-line heptagons off or on writing lines (pre-writing skill); extend into connect-the-seven-dots activities.
• Pin-punch paper heptagons (pre-writing skill).
• Provide materials for children to make little books about seven. Include pictures (e.g., a cake with seven candles, a fish tank with seven fish).
• Explore sign language for seven.
• Add relevant words to Word Wall (e.g., seven, seventh, heptagon); Greek and Latin prefixes (e.g., hepta—as in heptagon); include related pictures of natural and man-made constructs (e.g., Statue of Liberty is crowned with seven rays).
• Add to three-part card activities (e.g., heptagon).
• Explore phrases (e.g., “at sixes and sevens,” “seventh heaven”).
  

CULTURE

• Spotlight the words for seven as you learn to count together, one to ten, in other languages.
• Look for expressions of seven on a variety of flags (e.g., Australian, Venezuelan, Zimbabwean).
• Share expressions of seven elsewhere in various cultures (e.g., seven chakra or centers of spiritual power in the human body in Indian thought, often associated with yoga exercises).
  

History and Timelines

• Add to the linear display of calendar months; guide concept of seven months.
• Add to the linear display of photographs of a child; add one from his or her seventh birthday—continuing concept of a lifetime.
• Refer to a linear timeline of the ages and find the early civilizations of Egypt, the Americas, and Islam; explore work of the ancient craftsmen who used geometry extensively, both structurally and symbolically; focus on seven and the geometric expressions of seven.
  

Art and Music

• Invite child to the nature table and engage child in conversation about the objects on display; have child draw/map the objects to create a still life.
• Print heptagonal shapes using various items.
• Paste heptagonal shapes.
• Stencil heptagonal shapes.
• Explore what can be created with heptagonal shapes.
• Cut or pin-punch heptagonal shapes.
• Explore patterning properties of heptagons.
• Provide coloring sheets with heptagonal patterns.
• Marble-roll paint onto paper in heptagonal pan or box.
• Look for heptagons within selected pieces of art.
• Explore tangrams.
• Make rainbow art, i.e., red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
• Sing and dance (e.g., add seventh verse to “The Ants Go Marching,” “Do-Re-Mi”).
• Teach the traditional seven musical notes, i.e., C, D, E, F, G, A, B.
• Introduce a performance by seven instrumentalists or singers as a septet.
  

Science

• Separate the colors of a rainbow with a prism, i.e., red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
• Look at The Periodic Table of Elements; seven is the atomic number of nitrogen.
  

Astronomy

• Show pictures of the Big Dipper and count the seven stars.
  

Botany/Zoology/Human Body

• Count the seven spots generally found on a common ladybug.
• Examine and count the seven neck bones generally found in almost all mammals.
• Begin simple yoga exercises; introduce the seven chakra or centers of spiritual power in the human body in Indian thought.
  

ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES

1. Have children find an expression of seven outside (e.g., rocks, flowers).
2. Invite seven children to sit on the patio and roll a ball to each other; talk about the shape expressed, i.e., a heptagon.

---

• Classroom and home photos

• Books
• Educational materials 
• Items and activities that can enhance the number theme

Heptagon

Ladybugs often have 7 spots.

C, D, E, F, G, A, B (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

Tangram

Seven Continents of the World

Statue of Liberty

Seven is the atomic number of nitrogen.