Learning Shapes- Decorating a felt Easter Egg

I thought that I would share this with you a great way to learn shapes and decorate an Easter Egg at the same time.  It is so simple to make just cut out some felt eggs and shapes then all is left is to decorate! We talked about the shapes that Little Boo was using and the colours that they are.  We have the big, medium and little egg so this meant there was lots of discussion about their sizes.  I asked Boo to put different amounts of the shapes onto the eggs so this meant she was practising counting as well. I decided to add in some wool and scissors so Boo could cut up some wool to use as well. Lots of potential with this simple activity.

Game to help shape and colour recognition

Just thought I would share with you a simple few games that we did the other day. Little Boo had her foam shapes out we laid them on the table and I started to ask her questions such as " find me a blue shape?", "find me a triangle?" the questions then got harder such as " find me a blue triangle?" "find me a yellow square?". This went really well and I was impressed at how well she was doing.

Placing the shapes in size order

Spotting different shapes

We then progressed to putting the shapes in order largest to smallest. This is such a versatile game as you could start to ask for the odd ones out as well or creating patterns all these games for a 99p pack of shapes.

Making a geoboard

I saw on Pinterest that someone had made a Geoboard so thought I would try this out.  The one in question that I saw was made with buttons.  This looked great after researching on the Internet geoboards I realised that there are a lot of different homemade ones out there mainly using peg board and nuts and screws.  I came  to realise that peg board is hard to come by and can be quite costly so decided to think of a cheaper alternative so that I could see if Little Boo liked the Geoboard first.  I realised that some of my bottle tops would come in useful for this project.  Here is how it has turned out

To make this all I have used is nine bottle tops and double thickness of mount board.  I used hot glue to stick down the tops and this has worked effectively.  I am really pleased that I was able to find a cheap and safe alternative to the other boards I have seen, Now just watch this space to see how Little Boo gets on with her new creation.

Sparkly letters

I feel that the best activities are those that your children just do naturally.  This is an activity that came purely from Little Boo herself (after the pig creation). There were loads of sequins in the boxes which she just started grabbing and moving from one box to the other.

Moving them one box to the other

Pouring them

First making a circle

Then a letter e

Then making marks with a lolly pop stick

When pouring apparently the sequins "look pretty" and "make a nice noise" Then with the ones that had spilt she started drawing. I realise this can get messy but she loved it! We put down a sheet of foam so she could easily see what letter or shape she was making. I would write something in the sequins then she would copy. It started a brilliant conversation about letters as Little Boo suggested what the letter b looked like.

Do not throw away your old camera

Little Boo liked the claws!

The floor was not missed
as it had "triangles"

We also saw circles on the
floor.

We have been to a local art gallery. Little Boo's Auntie was kind enough to give her an old digital camera. It has been brilliant to use as Little Boo took pictures around the gallery of what she liked.  The activity sparked loads of conversation around the gallery and it was funny as one of Little Boos toys was posing in a few of them. Hope you like some of the pictures that were taken.  How many of you have tried this with your children I would love to hear about the results. We intend to stick all the pictures in her scrapbook.