Sticker Shapes Toddler Activity

Sticker Shapes: for the win.

If loving dot stickers is wrong, then I don’t want to be right. People, the obsession/the struggle: it’s real. I’m officially stock piling dot stickers and for good reason. They are amazing. Case and point: meet Sticker Shapes.

Sticker Shapes is our newest dot stickers obsession. It’s fast, it’s easy, it’s where the hot coffee is at.

I love a good dot stickers moment.

I’ll be honest: we started playing with dot stickers a year ago and we have not taken our foot off the throttle. These guys are so versatile. Name activity, sorting activity, heck – I even started added them to our Restaurant kit.

My best tip with dot stickers: Make sure to peel off the middle white sticky part. Makes it so much easier for little toddler fingers to pull the stickers off.

The simple supplies to set up Sticker Shapes

Materials:

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• dot stickers
• construction paper
• ridiculously giant Sharpie marker

It didn’t take much to set up this activity – and that’s the way a good toddler activity should be. Easy to set up and fun to play!

A few thoughts on shapes

Shapes are a fun one to teach kids but remember – shapes are complex and abstract. Think of the difference between color and shape. Color is so concrete. That crayon is red, the paint is blue.

Shapes are harder. First off, sometimes they’re 2-dimensional and sometimes 3-dimensional. Aside from shape toys, you mostly have to identify shapes in their environment – which is tougher!

Be patient as you introduce shapes and make sure to only work on a few at a time. I stick with the “big ones”: triangle, circle and square (and I won’t introduce much else until Pre-K). For this activity, I added in a diamond (rhombus) just for fun.

Make sure to pause for attributes!

I drew the shapes on construction paper and hung them on the walls. I set this activity up for my 2.5 year old and for my 4 year old.

First, we talked about the shapes and their attributes. This isn’t a long lesson. This isn’t a lesson to mastery. Consider these as passing comments. They may stick, they may not.

“This is a square. It has four sides and four points.”

Get those stickers ready

I peeled the whites off the stickers for my kids and they were off and running.

Just look at the difference between their shapes, their work, and how they completed the activity. I did not ask them to use one color for each shape. The 4 year old made that decision. The 2.5 year old made the decision to copy him.

I love looking at their developmental levels. My 2.5 year old lasted about 10 minutes before losing focus. My 4 year old wanted to see the project through. Both were so proud of their efforts.

Sticker shapes was a huge hit. A great way to practice fine motor skills and an awesome easy math activity. It works for both toddlers, preschoolers, and Moms who have an obsession with dot sticks.

Will you try sticker shapes at your house?