Hello everyone, it’s Amy from The Connection We Share, and I’m happy to be back with you again!
Lately, I’ve been busy making learning materials for my daughter Elle, one being this shapes matching game.
I have a regular 9-5 and when I’m at work, my in-laws or my husband looks after the kids (yes, I’m very lucky, I know.) They LOVE looking after the kids and they play with them, take them to the park , take them out for lunch and so on but 1 thing I thought they would enjoy is doing some learning activities together.
To make it really easy for my in-laws and husband to teach Elle, I have a box of educational activities all ready to go so when the time is right, they could take out some of these activities and do it with her.
In this learning box, there are various counting games, puzzles, playdough mats, writing sheets and coloring sheets. These games and activities are meant to engage Elle in a fun way to help her learn and develop new skills. Once in a while if I know Elle has been playing with these games too many days in a row, I’ll give them a Kiwi Crate craft kit to do with her (find Kiwi Crate here).
1 game I don’t have in my repertoire is a hands-on game that teaches Elle about shapes. Since I recently made her a color and pattern matching game using popsicle sticks, I used the same elements to create a game for her to build shapes using sticks (both printables are available at the end of this post).
When Elle plays with anything, she likes to sort and gather all her materials first before she plays so I took this opportunity to practice her counting skills. With each shape we counted the number of sides, then picked up the same amount of sticks to build the shape.
This game, as well as the other matching game, really challenged her fine motor skill (which I didn’t think of when I made the games). She had to really work hard at avoiding the sticks that are already laid down while putting a new stick down.
If you’d like to build some shapes with popsicle sticks, you could download this free printable here. The other color and pattern matching game for kids I made is also available for download. Enjoy!
Did you color the sticks yourself or can a lazy parent like me buy them in assorted colors from a craft store or somewhere? (PLEASE SAY I CAN BUY THEM ALREADY COLORED!!!)
Hey Liv! Yes you can buy the popsicle sticks! If you want them shipped to your house, Amazon has it. If you want to venture out, your local dollar store probably has them too =)
Wow, how do you do it all? You work and still make time to do learning crafts with your kids? I need to step it up 😉 Thanks for the great ideas and printable, going to have some fun tomorrow!
To be honest Jamie, it doesn’t happen as much as I’d like. We probably do a craft 1-2 times a week. It’s a great way to connect with Elle and spend some time learning together =)
I’m so excited to use these in therapy (I’m a speech-language pathologist)! I noticed when I was lamintating them that the square says “rectangle” underneath, is there any way you could change this? It’s not that big of a deal, but I’d love to know if it gets updated. Thanks!
Hi. I need some help with printing these. Can’t get them to print out the right size. Any suggestions?
Realized this morning that they aren’t meant to be the same size as the popsicle sticks. So never mind. 😉
FYI – you have the the blue square labeled as a rectangle. I just thought you should know. Also, yes, if they were scale to the popsicle sticks that would be ideal.
Thank you so much for sharing these!
Why can’t I locate the files and download them?
Hi Yvonne, looks like the link is in the very last paragraph of the post where she says to download here.
Hi, thanks for sharing! Do you maybe have a version which I can edit to translate the name of the shares to Dutch?
Was wondering if you could correct the blue square as it is labeled rectangle. Thanks!
I just asked for this correction too last week. But Amy seems to have gone silent.
Yes, sorry. This post is a few years old and Amy no longer writes on the blog. The best way of reaching her is through her own blog: http://blog.theconnectionweshare.com
When I click to print the popscicle shape patterns, the only thing that prints is the banner on the left side of the page. Everything else is blank. Suggestions?