Tape Shapes

J got a great gift from his Aunt… colorful bean bags!!  I’m so excited to use them for lots of fun!  This is my first official activity using them.  I used painters tape to create various shapes on thekitchen floor, in this case a square, triangle and rectangle.  We’re currently emphasizing the rectangle in our house since it’s one of the basic shapes that J hasn’t consistently recognized yet.  I chose the triangle and the square because he’s better as those (adding just one unfamiliar shape at a time).

I then gave J specific directions, “Toss the green beanbag into the square!”  He enjoyed trying to toss them inside the shapes.  I requested a specific color bean bag to reinforce colors.  He’s pretty good at most of his colors which kept this activity focused more on the shapes.  You could definitely use the painted shapes without the bean bags… “Crawl to the circle! Walk to the square!  Walk backwards to the triangle!”

This was also a great way to emphasize inside and outside as well as fill and empty (“Empty the triangle!”)

As a side note – I left these shapes on the floor for a full week.  They’re very convenient!  If you need your toddler contained for a bit, “J, sit on the square!  Eat your snack in the rectangle!”  It gives them obvious boundaries and helps them easily understand what you’re asking of them. 

22 months

Age Attempted?  22 months

Try Again?  Yes, maybe different activities using the floor shapes.

Falling Leaves

I love Dot markers!  Oh I wish they had these when I was little!  I find myself thinking about tons of different pictures we could create with these cool markers.  At this age, however, I’ll stick to the simple pictures.

One such picture is an autumn tree.  I drew the tree trunk beforehand and gave J the orange, yellow and red markers to create leaves.  He loves the dot markers too, but hasn’t quite mastered them yet. He mostly likes to take the colorful caps off and then of course put them back on.   

You’ll notice many of the leaves in the example picture are in the process of falling or have already landed on the ground nearby.  Hopefully it looked enough like a tree for Grandma to recognize it!

Age Attempted: 17 months

Teachable moments: Of course you can emphasize that the markers create circles on the paper, take a walk outside to see the changing leaves, talk about how the leaves change from green to yellow and orange and red when the weather begins to chill; this is a good seasonal activity

Try Again?  We’ve already done other pictures with dot markers.  They make great balloons and bubbles!  Sorry no examples to show!