Make Ant with Shapes

(Game)

Do you need a way to teach young children shapes? Do your kiddo have trouble with instructions? If yes, this post might be for you.

At her age now (2 years 7 months), Y already understands instruction pretty good but more often than not she prefers not to do what big people told her, just simply to show her independence. One trick I like to do with her is not giving instructions at all. I just give an example instead. It seems that observing and mirroring are not in the same category with doing what she was told. It’s a win-win solution for everyone.

This is more to a matching game with shapes than a craft activity. I have prepared the shapes already cut.

This ant has circle head and rectangle body. I make triangle shapes for the antenna and small circles for its feet. I find visual learning is important for children. They will remember shapes with creating this art project.

Materials:

-papers

-scissors

-pipe cleaners

-pencil

-a tray

Instructions:

-Let your kiddo choose the color of the papers.

-Explain the shapes and advice to draw the shapes and cut.

-Place the shapes on the background paper to create the ant figure.

-Place each shapes on to the background paper and confirm the shapes with your kiddo each time to memorise.

The ant do not have to be black or brown or red. It could be any color Y would like to use. She chose orange color for her ant, blue one for mine, green pipe cleaner for both of us and yellow for the eyes.

I let her to trace the shapes. Fisher Price blocks, a coin and lids were big enough for Y’s hand to hold and trace with. The tracing was rather messy, but it was good enough for me to cut for her.

I began to arrange my ant using all blue shapes on a pink paper. From the corner of my eyes, I could see she was observing but didn’t make any move. Thought it was gonna be a fail, I asked her permission if I may make an ant using her orange shapes.

She said “No!” and then began making her own ants while chanting all the shape’s name. At that point I had to bit my own lips a bit to hold my giggle. She made it!

Bending the pipe cleaners was quite a challenge so she kept saying “Hapi hapi hapi” meaning “help me.” She did the rest independently though.

Once Y finished placing the shapes and eyes, I complimented the work she did and then repeated the question, " What shape is the ant's head?" etc.

#ant #shapes #toddler