I’m always looking for new and exciting ways to work on shape recognition with XGirl, and this magic disappearing shapes activity was a perfect fit for her! After all, what kid wouldn’t love a bit more magic in their learning day? 🙂 Plus, this activity sneaks in a little fine motor practice at the same time. Win-win!
Note: For more ideas and free printables to help kids learn shapes, see my teaching shapes to kids page.
To do the magic disappearing shapes activity, I gathered the following materials:
- The targeted shapes for her to practice drawn in marker on coffee filters
- A plastic pipette
- A cup of water
- To contain the mess, all of the materials were put on one of our craft trays
To play this activity, I named a shape and asked XGirl to find it on her coffee filter. Then she dripped water on it using her plastic pipette
When the marker used to draw the shape comes into contact with water, it begins to spread out until it practically disappears – just like magic!
XGirl loved the opportunity drip water on her coffee filter, and it was a great way for her to work on her shapes. Using the pipette
I’ve also used this activity to work on letter recognition with QBoy (click here to see it in action!), and this magic disappearing shapes activity could easily be adapted to work on other skills as well (e.g., numbers, sight words, colors). How will you use this activity to make your child’s learning feel like magic?
More resources for learning shapes
More shapes posts from Gift of Curiosity:
- 20 ideas for teaching shapes
- 15 books about shapes
- Trace the shapes art and fine motor activity
- How many ways to make a shape?
- Sand shapes
- Exploring 3D shapes through play
- 3D shapes graphing game
For more ideas and free printables to help kids learn shapes, see my Teaching Shapes to Kids page and my Learning Shapes Pinterest Board.
Follow Katie @ Gift of Curiosity’s board Learning Shapes on Pinterest.
Tess says
August 10, 2013 at 2:55 pmAnother good idea as usual!
Katie says
August 10, 2013 at 3:13 pmThanks Tess! So kind of you to say.
Kristan Price says
August 14, 2013 at 8:54 amOh this is such a great idea! We use the same method for crafts and colour projects but I never thought to do this with shapes! We will have to add this to our list of shapes activities. Thank you for such a great idea and I bet this would also be fun to do with letters and numbers, too!
Katie says
August 14, 2013 at 10:30 amYep, we’ve done this with letters as well, although not yet with numbers. It can definitely be adapted to work on a variety of skills!
Carrie says
August 16, 2013 at 5:38 amOh, what a fun idea!! Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!
susen says
August 11, 2014 at 9:01 amOh, I love this! Got lots of coffee filters too!