Colors and Shapes Recognition

Creative way to help children learn shapes and colors.

Felt or Paper Shape Art (color and shape recognition)

You can use either colored pieces of felt, cardstock or construction paper for this activity. You may wish to use a full piece of felt or cardstock as a canvas background to build on.

Many rudimentary drawings begin as simple shapes connected together to form a picture. The shapes are the backbone of the artwork.

This activity engages your child in working with shapes and colors. Your child will be placing shapes together to form familiar pictures. Ask your child about the shape names and colors as he creates.

Cut out simple shapes that your child can lay onto each other to create a familiar picture. For example you could cut out a red circle and a long, thin brown rectangle to create a lollipop picture. You could cut out a yellow circle and little triangles to place around the circle to create a sun picture.

Organize each picture in a separate plastic bag. You can draw a simple example picture of the shape art to keep with the shapes in the bag. You could even snap a photo of the shape art and keep that with the shapes as reference.

If there are several repetitive shapes, you can use these to practice addition and subtraction. For example, you can count the number of triangles in the sun picture, then take one away as you ask your child: “5 minus 1 equals, how many triangles?” Be sure to use correct math language as you work on math skills.

Cut out several random shapes from all different colors of paper or felt. Keep these in a separate bag and let your child layer these shapes to build his own shape creations.