toddler shapes: learn and play

The following guest post is written by talented and creative Australian homeschooling mom of two, Rachel Brown.

Rachel writes the blog, Racheous, where she shares Lovable Learning ideas!

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Toddler Shapes: Learn & Play, by Rachel Brown

Learning and play go hand and hand, particularly during the toddler years!

I love watching my almost 2 year old explore the world around her – everything is new and exciting.

Similar to exploring colours with a toddler, learning about shapes begins with simple sensory explorations and play.

Then you can move forward to sorting, matching and more involved vocabulary.

Our favourite tools and toys for exploring shapes are:

puzzles (like our lovely Melissa and Doug beginner pattern boards),

open-ended educational manipulatives,

stencils (we use the Learning Resources stencils) and

creative art tools (i.e. stamps, paper punches, play dough with shape mats and cutters).

Readers of Racheous – Lovable Learning, will know that we love DIY Montessori-inspired activities. I adapted our usual posting activities to create a shape posting game with my toddler. This is great for fun identifying and fine motor skills!

I first made a dice with a couple of our wooden blocks – one for colours and one for shapes (doubled up on each – circle, square and triangle; but you could include other shapes instead for an older toddler or preschooler!).

Then I explained to Lucy that we roll each dice and post the corresponding shape!

This was very challenging for her (she wanted to put them all in the coin box) as she is only learning her secondary colours now. This will be an activity we will revisit.

Shapes are the perfect starting point for early-mathematics. I hope you found something inspiring to do with your toddler!

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Thank you, thank you, Rachel! We appreciate your post and expertise!!

Rachel is an Australian homeschooling mama of two who shares many educational kids activities over at racheous.com.

You can connect with Rachel on Pinterest, Google+, Facebook and Twitter!

Looking for more ways to teach toddlers and preschoolers? Stop by and follow these great educational Pinterest boards:

Learning & Play | Racheous – Lovable Learning
Montessori Activities | Racheous – Lovable Learning
Infant and Toddler Montessori Activities | Racheous – Lovable Learning
we teach: Montessori / teach mama
we teach: toddlers / teach mama
cool & creative indoor fun | teachmama

This post is part of our new Rockstar Sunday posts. Each week, I will highlight one ‘rockstar’ in the parenting and education field. These posts? Seriously awesome.

Have something you’d like to share that in some way relates to fun learning, school, technology, education, or parenting? For a short time we’ll be accepting Rockstar Sunday guest posts.

The response to our Rockstar Sunday feature has been overwhelming. I am in awe of the ideas, submissions, and shares!

Having been in the blogging space for 5+ years, we know for sure that our readers are always up for fresh and fun ideas on literacy, math, technology, parenting, and learning in the every day. They love crafts, hands-on teaching ideas, printables, cooking with kids, and anything that makes their job as parents easier, better, and more fun.

You don’t have to have a blog of your own–just cool ideas to share! We look forward to hearing from you!

other posts in the series: