shape sort

I recently found a huge bag of foam shapes with my school supplies. M loves them and we've used them for a few things. I wasn't sure how a sort with them would go but M ended up getting really into it and pretending each set of shapes were a family ("where does baby square go?"). 

I made some large construction paper shapes and gave him a bowl of shapes. I showed him two and he caught on right away. I think I will try this again another day with colors. M was calling the large shapes their "houses" so I think making colored houses to sort them into by color would a success. 

shape hunt

This was a completely last-minute, thrown-together idea that M ended up loving.  I can't say I'm 100% surprised since sometimes I'll put a lot of effort into things he spends 5 minutes doing.  Funny how that works....

We've been trying to keep M busy in this very cold weather we've been having.  The other night I spent 20 minutes playing a game M kind of created himself that was a cross between chase and hide-and-seek.  Anyway, M took a rest the other day and woke up about an hour before dinner time.  Sometimes that can be the longest hour of the day.  We needed something novel...

I quickly cut up some paper into shapes (circles, squares, and triangles) and colored them.  During the Christmas season M loved finding our elf each morning so I thought a "scavenger hunt" of sorts would be fun for him.  I hid the shapes (we did the circles, then the squares, etc.).  He loved searching for them and collecting them as he found them.  M knows those three shape names but still occasionally mixes them up so it was a great reinforcement for IDing those shapes.  Really, you could do this with anything (shapes, letters, numbers, words, etc.)  You could even add some kind of sorting element after they're all found.

Our version ended up being quick, easy, and filled up about a half hour!

As always, some photos...

shapes-

found one-

hidden triangle-

magnetic pumpkin

We're starting our Halloween activities a little early (is it still September?) because our Baby G countdown is on and with her due date a week before Halloween, it's hard to know what we'll get in towards the actual day.

This is our first Halloween/pumpkin activity.  We have a few others here from last year that M could completely do again this year at 2.  We started this activity last week when we painted our paper pumpkin orange.  I was going to use orange construction paper but M loves to paint so I thought he'd enjoy that more.  I also used a sheet of black craft foam to cut the jack o'lantern pieces.  Each piece then had a magnetic strip attached to the back.

We taped the pumpkin to the fridge and stuck the pieces on the fridge next to it.  I made a face to start and M caught right on...

M had already done a pretty good job of giving a real pumpkin a face with his Nonni last week so this worked out well.  He liked changing the pieces.  I ended up making about 4 interchangeable sets of  face pieces.  I almost didn't put them all out because I could picture them all over the floor but so far that hasn't been a problem.  Another benefit- shapes.  M knows a few and likes naming them - win win.

stained glass window

This is an activity I've been meaning to try for a while but I never had clear contact paper on hand. This weekend we bought some for another DIY project for the baby's room so we were able to get this in as well. 

All you need for this activity is clear contact paper and small pieces of some other type of paper. We used construction paper because it was what we had. I think tissue paper would look really neat and give more of a stained glass look but this worked fine too. 

Hang the contact paper sticky side out on a window. We used our slider which worked well because I could put the paper lower for M. Cut or rip the other paper into small pieces then stick it on. 

M took it upon himself to name some shapes as he went, which I wasn't even expecting.  As we worked I thought it would be neat to have pieces cut as specific things that could make a scene (like animal/barn/tractor pieces to make a farm scene).  That would obviously take more prep on my part (as it was we did this kind of on the fly this morning) but I think M would really like it. 

All finished:

smoosh painting

This is a relatively quick and clean art activity.  Our finished smoosh paintings came out colorful and cute but M lost interest in this pretty quickly so we didn't cover the entire shapes.

I think this would be great with two or three year old who could appreciate the mixing colors.  Materials you need: paint, large ziploc bags (make sure they have a good zip), and paper shapes.  We used construction paper.

Put one shape in a bag with some paint.  We used two colors at a time because I could see putting all the colors in and having just turn brownish.  I put a good glob of each color but in retrospect I would add more paint.  Zip up the bag and get smooshing....

Here are before and after shots:

We did this project on the floor and M used his hands and feet to smoosh.  I would recommend trying to take the paper out of the bag as soon as you're done.  I ended up leaving our second one in a little longer and it was kind of stuck to the bag.  The best part of this activity was that there was virtually no clean up.  M did this in his whitest shirt and all I did at the end was throw the bags away.  Loved that part of it!