Marshmallow Sorting

Here’s an activity I had thought of for Valentines Day, but instead of using only hearts, I decided to make it a shape sorting activity instead. I used an egg carton and silicone ice cube tray with hearts. I had the regular round marshmallows and the strawberry heart shaped marshmallows. This is a really simple activity for preschoolers, but toddlers could do this as well. You could add more challenge for preschoolers by having them count the marshmallows or by adding other foods of different shapes to sort. I had counted out the exact amount, but for a little snack, you could add some extra for them to eat. This activity is good for fine motor skills, classifying and learning about shapes.

3D Shapes Matching Cards

These are 3D shape cards for matching and learning about shapes. I made them this afternoon. I used pieces of straws, pipe cleaners and uncooked spaghetti. The round shapes are made from the pipe cleaners, the triangles and rectangles are made from straws and the squares are made of spaghetti. When I have more patience and materials, I’ll add trapezoids, hexagons, half circles and different types of triangles. I thought of using tin foil, yarn and other materials to make the shapes too, but I didn’t have any of those things on hand. I’d like to make different colored shapes, but I used what I had and I can always add more later.

To make the shapes, I either bent or cut the straws and pipe cleaners. I broke the spaghetti into four equal parts to make the squares. They are crooked on the card because they slid when I stuck the tape to them. I covered all the shapes with tape so they wouldn’t fall off the card or come apart. Another thing I’d suggest is to tape the shapes to cardboard or thick poster board because as you can see, the index cards are bent from the taped shapes. If they were on cardboard, they’d last longer. You can even have your kids help you make the shapes.

Frozen Shapes

I receive an E-mail newsletter from, Play-Activities.com where I saw this idea. I thought it would be neat to try so I’m posting it.


Frozen Water Shapes

Materials:
Various size balloons
Food coloring
Eye droppers
Large container for water play


Preparation:
1. Select different shaped balloons
2. Fill with water
3. Put in freezer for a few days
4. After they are frozen solid- cut away the balloon, leaving the shape.

Ideas:
Put the ice shapes into the large container. ( baby bath, paddling pool or water table)
Allow them to drop the food colouring onto the ice and watch the colors change.

Good For:
Hand - Eye Coordination
Experimentation
Creativity

You could also do this with different shaped ice cube trays.

Fall Colors Matching

Here’s a fall matching activity for color recognition. I only used five colors, but I’ll do some different activities as the seasons change and use the other colors for those. You match the colored shape with the same colored object. I’m using this as one of the activities in my fall colors lesson plan which will be posted either tomorrow or Saturday.

Brown

Green

orange

Red

Yellow

All images can be found on Google Images and are clipart.

Play-dough Guessing Game

Today, a few of the kids and I were playing with play-dough. We had out cookie cutters, rolling pins, a fake plastic knife and little plates. We started out making cupcakes. Once we got bored with that, I started making stars which kept getting smashed and ripped apart by a little girl I’ll call Kay. Every time I’d make a star, she’d ask if she could have it but then would destroy it. This quickly became a game and it was fun!
She’s one of the youngest in my group so I decided to test her on her shapes. First, I made a triangle which she guessed correctly. Then I made an oval which she thought was a circle. I told her it was close, but told her that it was an oval. It was a new word for her so she repeated it a couple of times. Then I made a square, but didn’t have a cookie cutter for that shape so it kept coming out crooked. I asked her if she knew what it was, but she wasn’t sure. I didn’t blame her for that one, but I told her I was trying to make a square and she repeated the word, “square?” I said, “Yes, it’s a square, but it was a little messed up.” After making some more stars and attempting to make a door out of a cookie cutter that she had picked out, we got back to shapes. I tested her on the oval again, but this time she had decided that it was a cake. I didn’t correct her this time because it could’ve been a cake or anything she wanted. Kay is one of those little girls who has a mind of her own and I like to encourage that.

The cookie cutter play-dough activity can also be good with letters and numbers if you have those cookie cutters. You make the letter cutout and then they can guess what it is. If they are helping you, it’s even better. If you don’t have the cookie cutters, just role the play-dough out into snake shapes and then make the letters and numbers from that. You don’t have to have an activity in mind with play-dough though. The best part of play-dough is that they can use their imagination and create anything.