Do you ever feel burned out from trying to find new fun and educational ideas to do with your preschooler at home? I am very excited to have joined up with 4 other lovely bloggers to bring you a new Creative Preschoolers Series. Every 2 weeks each blogger will all share a different craft or activity all based on a common preschool learning theme. This week we are sharing activities focused around shapes. I am delighted to show you our fun Triangle Ship Craft that I think your preschooler will love and our Shapes Matching Game. (Make sure to check out the 4 other ideas at the end of this post!)
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Our week all focused around this fun book Ship Shapes by Stella Blackstone. Within it you will find beautiful illustrations on each page and an opportunity to see what shapes you can spot while sailing the open sea. The text doesn’t really rhyme or have fantastic rhythm, but I love that the simplicity provided lots of lingering on each page and discussion about shapes.
TRIANGLE SHIP CRAFT
To go along with the story, we created this triangle ship, reminiscent of what you might find inside the book. I was fond of the idea of using lots of triangle shapes because I wanted my daughter to get the extra practice of cutting out triangles.
various colors of cardstock paper
(whatever colors you want to make your boat)
scissors
pencil
glue stick
crayons
Directions:
1. Print off the ship pattern and cut out all the pieces. Use a pencil to trace all the pieces onto the different colors of cardstock paper your child wants to use for their ship. Have your child cut out all the ship pieces. This is great scissor practice for a preschooler.
2. I also drew a pattern of triangles along the bottom of a piece of blue cardstock paper for my preschooler to cut out to use for the waves in the ocean.
3. Glue your half sheet of blue construction paper to the bottom of your blue 12 x 12 cardstock paper. Then glue the pieces of your ship onto your paper starting with the bottom of the boat. When you glue your blue waves onto your paper, layer them on top of your boat just a little so your boat looks like it’s inside the water.
4. Finish your craft by using crayons to add details to your picture. Trace the insides of your triangle sails and color designs in your water with white and blue crayons to mimic the Ship Shapes book.
SHAPES MATCHING GAME
To review and practice all of our shapes I also made this simple Shapes Matching Game for my preschooler to play this week. I have made the Matching Game Printable available for you also.
After playing the matching game several times the cards served great for talking about shapes. I asked questions like “What shape is this?” “How many sides does a triangle have?” “What is the first letter in diamond?”
Check out the Shape ideas from the other Creative Preschool Bloggers!
Caroline
