Shape Sorting Game

Activities seem to be more fun when they're done on a larger scale.  Since the girls (31 months) have been pretty bored with sorting by shape and color (they had it mastered around 18 months old), I thought I'd change it around by making it into a new game.  First I put some painter's tape on the floor in four different shapes.  Then I made shape cards for the photo dice, and brought out the tub of linking shapes:

The Shape of Me and Other Stuff - Seuss Activity

Yesterday;s Seuss activity was fairly simple.  The original idea was to make sun-prints out of various household objects and construction paper (put objects on paper, lay in the sun until the paper around the objects fades and an impression of the objects is left).  However, I think our construction paper was already old and faded and after a couple hours in the sun with no change, I decided to go for Plan B.

I traced the outline of the objects on the paper, and gave it to the girls as a puzzle where they match up the objects with their outlines.  This was not too challenging for L and E (31 months), but since it was a new activity they were excited to try it.   Each girl took her turn sitting nicely at the table and concentrated on completing the task.

As much as kids need repetition to learn, they really want variety, so I'm glad we did an activity that was new to us.

Today the girls found the paper with the object outlines and wanted to do the activity again.  Since I had already put the objects away, it turned into a scavenger hunt, for a little extra challenge!

Circle Art Exploration

After breakfast yesterday, I asked the girls to go around the house and find as many circles as they could.  This ended up being a fun little scavenger hunt and they found a wide array of circles in different sizes:

Then I put some paint in shallow plastic dishes and showed them how to use these objects to make circle prints by pressing them first in the paint and then on a large piece of butcher-paper I had taped to their table:

Then we tried experimenting with using paintbrushes to paint inside the cookie cutters to make circles, use them to trace the outside of the circles, mix colors, and of course get some fingerpainting in as well.

This is the only picture I have of E (or rather, her hands), since she decided to do this activity without any clothes on.  That was probably a smart move, since it got very messy and the girls headed straight for the bath when they were done.  The final result was not the perfect masterpiece I had imagined, but it's the art experience that really counts.