Linking Colours and Shapes

The thing my son really enjoys learning about lately is colours. So last night while I was at the Dollar Tree (to pick up ice cube trays to make some homemade watercolours for our cousins, but I totally forgot them, whoops!), I passed by the educational/teacher/school supply section and saw these fantastic coloured linking shapes, I knew I had to pick them up for him! And I'm so glad that I did, because they are so fun to play with!

I feel like some toys and items from the Dollar Tree is hit or miss, but these were definitely a hit! I was worried the plastic might be too flimsy or break easily (my kids typically figure that out rather quickly), but they have held up all morning! We'll see about the future, but if they can survive a few hours I'm pretty satisfied by their durability. I bought two packages and each had 44 pieces, so a total of 88. Six shapes and each shape a different colour, so they are perfect for sorting!

I opened a package last night when we got home so they could test them out before bedtime and they seemed to really like them. So this morning I brought them out again at breakfast. I hate cereal, but my kids love it (luckily they don't mind the organic kind). It was pretty fun and they played for quite a while!

After they were done eating I switched the container they were in for this white platter, so they could be spread out more. They had linked most of them together, so we practiced making a few shapes out of all of them (circle was easiest, but we also managed a square and triangle.)

Then we sorted them into a colour wheel. We have been learning about primary and secondary colours, so this was a fun activity for them to put what they had learned to use!

Bean linked two colours together and then added the colour they become to both.

We also created a few simple patterns.

And the kids linked them up.

The most fun was had when we worked on counting the shapes and colours! We grouped them together (one yellow square, two purple triangles, three blue hearts, four red circles, five orange stars, 6 green ovals/chain links).

And then mixed them. I called out a colour, shape or number or a combination of them randomly and they sorted through them to find the ones I asked for (example: find me two purple triangles or two red circles).

They were also just fun to play with without any directions or guidance. The kids made really long chains, created a mess of links that took forever to detangle, sorted them all by themselves and created a pyramid (Bean stacked them darkest colour at the bottom with lightest colour on top). 

These links are perfect for colour and shape sorting, creating patterns, fine motor play, counting, and I'm sure plenty of other fun learning activities that we will come up with! If you have any suggestions, feel free to share them in the comments! 

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