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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.
Another good idea as usual!
Thanks Tess! So kind of you to say.
Oh 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!
Yep, 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!
Oh, what a fun idea!! Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!
Oh, I love this! Got lots of coffee filters too!
Hi!
What kind of markers did you use?
We probably used Crayola markers but it should work with just about any type of marker. (Although I don’t recommend using permanent marker for this activity.)
Hi
Very nice idea, can we any other paper in place of coffee filter.
Regular paper will not work well for this experiment. There is a special chromatography paper sold in science stores you can also use. But for most people it is easier to find coffee filters than speciality paper.