Art activity: Shape collage.

If you’re looking for a fun simple activity to incorporate shape learning then shape collages are perfect for teaching your kiddos to be creative and learning their shapes at the same time. I’m often looking for low prep activities with minimal printing. In which shape collages are perfect because we cut out our shapes on construction paper. We did it free hand, you could use stencils or cookie cutters to make perfect shapes. In our house perfect isn’t all that important rather we just enjoy creating and having fun.

My youngest daughter’s (age 3) shape collage.

My youngest daughter’s (age 3) other shape collage.

I had drawn with marker on construction paper and cut out several shapes before they woke up to lay out in a path for them to follow. Leading them to their art area in the kitchen to create their collages.

My youngest daughter woke up first and to keep herself busy till her sister woke up she made her own path up the stairs with shapes that we cut out together.

I also drew simple patterns on a sheet of construction paper in order to touch base about patterns with both my daughters. That we later cut out to stick on collages.

My youngest practicing her scissor skills with my help.

Incorporating reading into the activity.

Red apple tree and blue eye guy shape collage.Download

I made a simple page for my oldest to read and my youngest to be read to. I try to incorporate reading into as many activities as possible because my oldest often doesn’t feel like reading books.

We used construction paper, sharpies, scissors, and stick glue. My oldest brought out more craft supplies we have on hand and added a little butterfly to her butterfly collage. The activity is extremely versatile. You can cut out the pieces or let your kiddos do it themselves. Let them make whatever. Just remember nothing has to be perfect and learning doesn’t need to be an overly serious event. Trust me I know what it’s like always feeling like it needs to be perfect honestly that is just our adult brains. Kids will learn even if the shapes aren’t perfectly pretty and it’s not printed out on fancy paper. It’s really just about learning and having fun. Being sloppy is perfectly fine.

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Reading coloring pages with shape monsters.

I often find adding in coloring pages within our school curriculum helps encourage my oldest (age 7) to read more throughout the day. It also gives my youngest daughter (age 3) more fine motor practice. Coloring pages are perfect on days in which the kids are just not interested in workbooks. My youngest is currently working on shapes which inspired the fun shape monsters.

Circle shaped monster reading coloring page.Download

Rectangle shaped monster coloring reading coloring page.Download

Triangle shaped monster reading coloring page.Download

Square shaped monster reading coloring page.Download

Enjoy these reading coloring pages with shape monsters. I kept them simple with free space to allow for creativity. My oldest often enjoys adding her own shapes and drawings into the coloring pages. The sentences I used a font in which would allow for the kids to color in the words for letter practice.

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Shapes board games for preschool age.

Game board using toys as each players piece.

My youngest is learning her shapes. She often mixes up the square and rectangle. Therefore I made three different boards each covering three different shapes. I kept the rectangle and square separate so she could focus on each separately.

How to play…
1. A player rolls the dice.
2. Move that number of spaces.
3. Call out the name of the shape they land on.
4. At the finish the player names each shape in the finish spot.
A super simple quick game. It keeps my daughter’s (age 3) attention span and helps her quickly identify her shapes.

What you need to play…
-Game board (laminated optional)
-dice
-game pieces (we used small toys, you can use bingo chips, game pieces from another board game, whatever you want.)

Circle, heart, triangle, and square game board.Download

Octagon, diamond, oval, and pentagon game board.Download

trapezoid, hexagon, rectangle, and star game board

Trapezoid, hexagon, rectangle, and star board game.Download

I made the board games to encourage a more fun approach then just looking at a poster and reading off shapes with my youngest. Board games encourage turn taking and patience a quality I try to instill in my children. I hope the shape themed board games can help switch up your routine with your preschooler as well. Enjoy : )

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Teach my preschooler kit above is a helpful tool when it comes to teaching the basics because several subjects are all in one place easy to find and bring out when needed. I don’t know if any one else goes through the same struggle of trying to keep track of all their learning tools and toys and keeping their space neat and cluttered free. I certainly do and I can say that it helps having several basic skills in one place (numbers, alphabet, shapes, and colors.)

Click image above for more shape learning fun.

Click image above for more learning through play ideas.

Monster shape art.

My oldest daughter is currently enrolled in an online school for First Grade. Working alongside her to keep her on track can make it difficult to devote time to my youngest daughters (age 3) preschool activities. In which often times I turn to simple art based activities that give both my daughters a chance to create as my youngest daughter can practice basic skills. In which we recently made shape monsters in order to incorporate shape learning, creativity, colors, alphabet recognition and scissor practice all within one fun activity.

My oldest daughters shape monsters; using rectangles, squares, and ovals.

My youngest daughter and I worked together to create our shape monster.

The shape monster got hungry, we fed it alphabet letters.

My oldest made her shape monster whichever way she felt. I often don’t give her strict rules when it comes to creating art because I allow it to be a place in which she can freely create and express herself. My youngest is still learning how to properly hold scissors therefore we created the monster by working together. I asked her what shapes she wanted to use for different body parts. Then we added a pipe cleaner to the top so she could hold on to it, in which she ran around the house flying her monster all around. When it got hungry we cut out the letters that make up her name and fed them to the monster.

I have found the simplest of activities tend to be the most useful for us. As a parent that works alongside her children I often get flustered trying to make every activity the best it can be. The truth is regardless how fancy or sloppy an activity is put together it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that they’re learning. In which I often turn to simple activities I can slap together last minute that don’t always have to be printed out. I also found that my children work best when they’re not given strict rules and are allowed to create what that want rather than an exact replica of something. Such as lets make a shape monster and then they decide what shapes they want to use and what their monster will look like.

12 Early reader coloring pages for the holidays.

Happy holidays! If your homeschooling and looking for a fun way to go over shapes and incorporate reading or looking to supplement over holiday break these early reader coloring pages are a great way to sneak in extra reading practice. Sight words in bold font for quick recognition.

Present shapes for early reader coloring pages printable.Download

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Items above are my Amazon picks.

12 Shape presents coloring pages for the holidays.

Happy holidays! If your homeschooling and looking for a fun way to teach shapes over the busy holidays or just looking for something to keep your little ones busy as they’re out of school on break these coloring pages will give the kids something to do while supplement learning.

Present shapes coloring pages printable. Download

More present shape coloring page printable.Download

Learning through play: Making Magic Potions.

For a fun educational Halloween inspired activity my daughters (age 2 and 6) and I made magic potions. To incorporate as much learning within the activity as possible I made colorful apples, shape pumpkins, and plain pumpkins to write sight words on. That my daughters could mix into their potions. The purpose of the activity was to supplement my oldest daughters daily goals which are reading, sight words, writing, and math in a fun way. A way that also covers going over basic skills with my youngest consisting of shapes and colors. Originally I had planned on adding in alphabet pieces either alphabet magnets, alphabet puzzle pieces, or alphabet lacing beads. However this time my youngest quickly lost interest in the activity although we were able to cover shapes and colors before she moved on.

Learning I incorporated within activity…
-colorful apples for color recognition
-shape pumpkins for shape recognition
-writing practice as my oldest wrote down her own potions
-sight words written on pumpkins
-reading 2 pages of simple directions for the activity
-basic math as we added up the ingredients to make the potions

Googly eye feathers my daughter made for the potions.

Zombie face mask made out of a paper plate.

Basic math. Fitting in more double practice. 4+4=8 add one more and you get 9.

Pumpkin shapes cards laminated for durability.

Pumpkin shapes with words printable.Download

I kept the cards blank that way I could laminate them and write new sight words each time we play with the cards.

Pumpkin cards printable. Download

Colorful apple cards laminated for durability.

Colorful apples printable. Download

Reading with Red Apple Tree, Blue Eye Guy, and Nana Hedgehog printable.Download

Reading with Nana Hedgehog printable. Download

I hope our Magic Potions inspired some fun learning through play ideas. If you prefer print free activities instead of using the pumpkins, and apple cards you could cut out fun potion ingredients out of construction paper.

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Click the image above for more Halloween inspired learning fun.

Animal shape puppets.

Yesterday I shared animal shape coloring pages I made for my daughters to color over the weekend. My daughters were excited about the coloring pages and decided they didn’t want to wait for the weekend and we went ahead and colored them today. My youngest insisted on making them into masks in which I suggested making them into fun little puppets instead. Which gave my daughters scissor practice for the day. Although my youngest (age 2) is still learning how to hold scissors properly I allowed her to cut the paper and then finished cutting out the animals.

Supply List For Puppets…
-Animal Shapes coloring pages
-crayons, markers, coloring pencils, etc.
-popsicle sticks
-glue
-scissors

My youngest daughter claimed her puppets weren’t being nice therefore she had to rip them up.

Click the image above for the link to free animal shape coloring pages.

After our mess was cleaned from the puppet making we headed outside for an active learning session. In which we played tag, went for a short walk, and my oldest made a fun maze with sidewalk chalk. She wrote out the words (start) and (finish) which gave her a chance to practice sounding out words in a way in which she approved. For extra learning you could add sight words throughout the maze and have your young learners read them as they walk upon each word to get to the finish line. In my household I only add in the amount I know my daughters will be willing to take on for the day. If I add to much outside of my daughters school curriculum in learning she gets upset and it’s a struggle to bring her back to a stable place in which we can get her to learn for the day.

Early reader coloring pages; Animal shapes.

I frequently use coloring pages as fun additional learning practice on the weekends. As a way to incorporate reading for my oldest (age 6) that isn’t strict. My youngest daughter (age 2) is currently working on recognizing her shapes therefore I decided to make coloring pages that would cover shape learning as well as early reading. To be efficient for both my daughters. I made the coloring pages with and without sentences. That way the pages for my youngest had larger animals with easier to make out shapes. The pages with sentences have sight words in bold font as quick reminders for early readers that those are words best memorized rather than sounded out.

Giraffe made of many shapes coloring page. Download

I see a giraffe made of many shapes coloring page.Download

Butterfly shapes coloring page.Download

Can you tell me what kind of shapes the butterfly is made of coloring page.Download

Unicorn shapes coloring page.Download

That unicorn is made up of many shapes coloring page.Download

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Above items are my Amazon picks.

Click image above for more shape learning fun.

Learning through play: Mail theme.

Recently we’ve been adapting a play based approach during our summer break. That way my oldest doesn’t lose the knowledge she learned all awhile getting the summer break she desires. Trying to come up with ideas to keep both my daughters interested and learning at their correct levels can be exhausting. Lately I’ve been taking a day to day approach in which I ask what they want to play and I just go with it and on the spot I throw in as much learning as possible within the activity. My only catch when it comes to the oldest is I tell her it has to involve writing. She often rolls her eyes and runs away when I grab out her journal and ask her to write. Therefore I’ve been trying to make it more fun.

What I was able to cover in our mail time…
-Reading: My daughter read the notes I wrote.
-Writing: My daughter wrote out notes for me and her little sister to read.
-Shapes: I drew pictures of shapes for my youngest.
-Sight words: I placed sight word cards into the mail box for my oldest to read.
-Alphabet recognition: I placed colorful alphabet pieces in the box for my daughters to name the different letters.

We placed our mail within a bin I had on hand. You can get creative and add to the fun by making a mailbox out of an old shoe box or similar box you have on hand.

Inside the box we all placed our notes to each other. My oldest wrote out her notes giving her plenty of writing practice for the day. My youngest drew all over pieces of paper for her notes. I wrote out notes to my oldest to help practice her reading skills, and I drew shapes for my youngest as a way to work in shape recognition for the day. I even added in letters from an alphabet puzzle we have, and sight word cards I’ve made previously.

An envelope my daughter made out of stickers and paper.

Samples of the notes I made for my daughters.

I’ve been trying to do no print simple activities lately. To make the letters more fancy they could easily be printed from the computer. The possibilities are endless as far as what the notes can cover in the sense of learning. A focus I have with my youngest is currently shapes therefore I chose to do pictures of shapes with you. While working in basic number practice as well. My oldest is at a level in which reading is a main focus therefore I kept her notes reading oriented without pictures.

A purse made out of paper and yarn my daughter made to hold the letters when finished.

After she made hers I made my own version using staples instead of tape to keep it more sturdy. I also tied string to the bag rather than taped it on which was used as a handle for the purse.

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Items shown above are my Amazon picks.