Christmas Pattern Blocks Spin and Build

Here’s an activity that your kids will absolute enjoy playing!  Christmas Pattern Blocks Spin and Build, where you integrate math (shapes) to Christmas symbols and icons.  This a shape pattern blocks activity with a twist!  Using the mats, you spin the spinner for the shapes that you will be using to form the puzzle.

 

FREE Apple Shape Matching Cards

We worked on our Apple Unit weeks ago and I'd like to share this beautiful apple-shape matching activity, designed for young learners.

Thanksgiving Pattern Blocks Spin and Build

Here’s an activity that Vito and I enjoyed playing together lately.  It is an extension work for our Thanksgiving Preschool Unit where we integrate math (shapes) to Thanksgiving symbols and icons.  We call this activity Spin and Build because we spin the spinner for the shapes we will be using to form the puzzle.

Seasonal Pattern Blocks Mats (with FREE Download)

I am so excited to share the latest craze in our house lately, the pattern block mats!  I made these printable materials because my boys are totally obsessed with making “pictures” and objects using our pattern blocks (bought from Amazon).  We own this and the magnetic version since Vito was a baby but the boys’ needs keep growing and I decided to provide them with picture mats so they can create not just plain pattern block objects but objects that integrate in beautiful backgrounds for a more imaginative play.  The best thing about this printable is that we can print and reuse them over and over again!

Real Life 3D Activity Cards

As an extension work for our Montessori Solids and real life 2D Shapes activities, Vito and I had fun working on our 3D real life activity cards weeks ago.  We used our geometric solids so Vito can have a real understanding of what these objects look and feel like.  To know more about these solids, I talked about it here.  If these are not available, Amazon carries Learning Resources 3D materials which are perfect alternatives for these Montessori solids.

Identifying 2D Shapes in Real Life Objects

I want to share how much we love these activity cards on 2D shapes that I made last year so Vito and I can practice identifying the shapes of objects that he gets to see almost everyday.  As I mentioned in my Instagram post, before working on these cards, we first looked around the house for objects with shapes of square, triangle, oval, rectangle, and circle.  Then at times, we also play I spy games on shapes and objects, and other times it’s more of “give me something that has a shape of … “.  We had fun doing this!

Hands-on Learning of Geometric Shapes

Vito is currently in the mood for learning geometric shapes.  I guess he was inspired by his older brother who is currently studying basic geometry at home. Vito has passed the stage of basic shapes, the ones you see in children’s puzzles and the like.  He’s been playing with those since he was a toddler, so I decided to introduce him to geometric shapes in the Montessori classroom.  It would have been nice if we own the Geometric Cabinet, but because we can’t afford one and we don’t have space for it, these insets which are basically materials for writing is a good alternative (best to none).  Note that these are not the traditional metal insets, we are using the plastic version.

Toddler Activity Trays (34 Months)

We are doing seasonal activities this week (autumn) so our activity trays, which are mostly for enhancement of fine motor skills are focused on shapes.  Below are the 6 shape activities for Vito.  Most of these are homemade and easy to setup.

Shapes Unit for Toddlers

Our Homemade Shapes Materials

Sometimes, the tools that Im looking for are not available on line or in stores so I made them myself.  I used to have a lot of time for making our own materials but with Vito and the increase of responsibilities at home, I can barely print my activities.  So my aim these days is to make materials that are simple and easy to assemble.  Here are the materials that are easy to make even without the use of a printer!

Creating Shapes with Geomag

Vito is 29 months old.

Have you heard of Geomag? We have this for years now but kept it because Vito used to mouth things. Now that he’s outgrown that behavior, I finally took it out and since then the boys had been using these magnets to create shapes and structures!

Shapes Resist Painting

Vito is 29 months old.

Here’s another interesting way you can get your kids to learn about shapes. I was telling Vito we’ll do magic, and look for shapes in the black paper.  He was fascinated of what he will discover after covering the cardstock with paint!

Learning about Geometric Shapes

Vito is 29 months old.
To start our Shape Unit this week, I want to share with you Vito’s current favourite learning material! This amazing product is from Learning Resources and both of my boys has been using the activity sheets for days!

Sensorial Play with Kinetic Sand & Geometric Shapes

Vito and Mavi are loving our Kinetic Sand!  In all honesty, I’m hesitant to purchase the sand because of its price.  Growing up in my homeland, sand was free and I could play with it day and night with my mother not shedding a single cent.  So the thought of Kinetic Sand costing more than my monthly college allowance is just crazy.  When it went on sale (70% off!), I knew I just have to get one because I wanted my kids to enjoy sand all year round just the way I played with it.  It was worth-it!

Learning Shapes for Toddlers

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Vito’s sensitive years has begun and he’s been learning a lot since I last posted his 21 months learning materials! With his current interest in letters and shapes,  Vito and I has been doing lots of play-based learning in the morning before his nap time.  Now this doesn’t take hours.  It’s a maximum of 10 minutes per learning material that he picks. 

So far he can recognize the following shapes:

triangle

circle

oval

square

star

He can’t pronounce their names properly though (except for star and circle), but yes he can say their names in a toddlerish cute way.

So here’s a summary of what we’ve been using to name and recognize shapes.

Melissa & Dough Jumbo Shape Puzzle

This is his favourite! He works on this everyday.  Working on this board, you need to say the name of the shape of the puzzle holder, and point to its match (say also its name) and then place the puzzle in the board.

This is available from here.

Playskool Shape Sorter

This toy has been on the shelf for ages!  I first made him use square, star and circle.  Then added oval and diamond and now, he has mastered half of the shapes!

This shape form fitter is available here.

Cookie Cutters and Playdough

The cookie cutters were bought from the local store. I love the colors and the differential sizes!  This is similar to the cookie cutters that I have.

And this is how he forms a star and a square all at the same time!

And yes, we do get to use them as stencils too!

 

Miniland Shape Sorting

This is one of my favourite purchases this year.  I love that we can do lots of things with this, from color and shape sorting, lacing and counting!  This is not his favourite pick though, so we might NOT be working on this for the meantime.  This Miniland Abacus Shapes can be bought from here.

Gluing Shapes

We stopped using glue because Vito didn’t like it.  Now that he’s a lot bigger, I re-introduced it once again and he’s not afraid of it anymore!  This is just a simple activity of sticking shapes into an art paper using buds. 

As you can see, I’m teaching him how to apply glue on a piece of paper

And he placed them on the paper of course, but on the wrong side and added some more glue on it!

 

Melissa and Doug Pattern Blocks

And the newest addition is this learning material from Melissa and Doug.  This is quite popular and the boys love it! Yes, not only Vito but Mavi is using it too!  Worth-it if you have multiple kids    Vito has been practicing this fish as he can recognize the triangle and oval right away.  He know what shape it has by picking the right blocks, but he still can’t fit them properly on the picture.  We’ll be playing more of this!

You can this from here.

And that’s about it! Hope this will give you an idea of materials and activities when learning shapes with your kids!  Don’t forget to pin this for later!