Tag: learningforkids

Learning Using Simple Shapes

Hello! Welcome to my blog! 🙂 Today I’d like to talk about ways you can teach young children by just using simple colored paper shapes. There are several skills you can practice while having fun with just basic colored shapes like squares. Let’s get started! 🙂

First, cut out squares from colored construction paper or similar. I went with 2 inch squares and the colors red, blue, orange, yellow, green and purple. You will want 8-10 squares of each color.

Separate each color into 2 piles with 4-5 squares of each color. One pile of each color goes to the adult playing and one pile of each color goes to the child playing. The more players you have, the more squares you will need to make.

The games you choose to play will be decided by the age of the children playing. I will show you different games that you can make easier or harder to fit your child’s age. We’ll start with a very simple game. The adult places 1-2 colored squares in front of the child. In this picture we’re using 1 blue square and 1 yellow square.

Then have the child lay down their squares to match the adult’s squares.

You can start with 1-2 squares and gradually work your way up to more. Three…

And on up to 5…and 6…

Positive praise goes a long ways towards making this game fun. Comments like “You got it!” or “Great matching!” offer positive reinforcement and help build self-esteem. You can take turns with who lays down the first squares and who does the matching. 😉

Try laying the squares horizontal like we’ve already done and then switch it up by laying some vertical.

To bring more fun and a little more difficulty, you can also add in some other shapes like circles. Add new shapes according to your child’s age and what difficulty they are ready for.

Not only does the child need to match the shape but also match the color. For instance, a purple square, a yellow circle and a red square…even though they have 2 shapes with different colors, they need to find the ones that match.

As you’re ready to move onto harder matches, you can add numbers to the shapes. You can practice getting the numbers in the correct order.

You can also practice getting the numbers in the correct order AND the correct colors AND the correct shapes.

If you have some colored pom poms on hand, you can also use them for matching to the shapes.

The ideas are endless! I’m betting you will think of other ways to play with shapes, colors and numbers that will have the kids having fun and not even realizing they are also learning. 😉 Just make sure you have enough matching sets and you are good to go…and all you need is some colored paper shapes. 🙂 Have fun and happy learning!

5 Ways to Reuse Magazines For Some Learning Fun

Do you wonder what to do with your magazines once you’ve read them? If you have children or grandchildren, save them for some learning fun! Or donate them to someone who has young children and share these great ideas with them. All you need for these learning projects is a used magazine that can be cut up, some paper, a few markers or crayons, some glue and scissors.

#1.)There are a few ways you can do these projects, but let’s start with “Animals”. On a blank piece of paper, write the word “Animals” at the top. Then let the kids go through the magazine and cut out any pictures of animals that they find. This is good for recognition of a particular item and great practice for those motor skills!

The cutting part will go better if you tear the entire page out before the kids start cutting. Here are the animals I found in my magazine…

Have the child glue the pictures onto their “Animals” paper. Now is a great time to chat about what animals they found, how many of each animal there is, what color they are, which one is their favorite and even some discussion about the differences between the animals. For instance, the 3 cats in this example all have different colored eyes. Fun fact! 😉

#2.) Following the same idea, you could have the kids do a page about 1 particular color. I chose the color red. Letting them choose what color to look for makes it more fun for them.

#3.) The next idea is to pick one letter and look for things that begin with that letter. And to keep an eye out and cut out the letter itself. I went with the letter “F”…flag, forks, flowers, fruit, food and fence. 🙂

#4.) You can also follow this same idea but use numbers. Have the child find 1 of something, and 2 of something else, and 3 of another thing…you get the idea…1 flag, 2 cats, 3 dogs, etc.

#5.) Now let’s work on letter recognition. Write each letter of the alphabet on a piece of paper and have some markers or crayons handy.

Have your child go through the magazine and find each letter of the alphabet. When they find a letter, let them cross that letter off their piece of paper.

If they would like to color in the letter in the magazine, let them do that. Or circle it…whatever they want to do to mark it.

Now you have 5 fun suggestions of ways to help your child learn while reusing old magazines! And you never know what fun fact or yummy sounding recipe you might come across for yourself. 😉