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Craft Stick Shapes

After several weeks of doing a shape/color activity with Silas each week, I can say two things with confidence:

1. He knows all of his colors. (I knew this already.)
2. I have NO idea if he knows his shapes.

Silas's two-ness is in full swing right now, and one of the things he's adamantly put his foot down about is identifying shapes. I got pretty good at tricking Levi into answering questions he didn't want to, three years ago, but Silas will not be manipulated. Now, he will tell me happily that a triangle is "a mountain," and a square "might be a diamond," but that's about it. Kid's driving me crazy.


But, we persevere, and this week we persevered with the help of some sticky craft sticks my mom sent for him. About an inch or two on one side of the craft stick is sticky. She suspected peeling off the backing would be good fine motor practice for him, and she was right: the first one was a little hard, but once he figured out where to pull, it was smooth sailing.


I drew a square and triangle on a piece of cardstock, using a craft stick as a guide to make them appropriately the right side, then had him line up the craft sticks on the lines of the shapes. Super simple, but with a lot of preschool bang for my buck! (Shapes, colors, one-to-one correspondence, fine motor skills . . . )


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