Play To Learn: Imaginets

Welcome to this week’s Play To Learn series! Today we’re going to talk about this fun little product I picked up at our local homeschool fair called Imaginets.

As most of you know, I’m a total sucker for fun colorful stuff, and these were so cute I couldn’t resist! They come with a set of idea cards which are great for preschoolers! 

Your kids use the card then re-create the image using the magnetic wooden shape blocks, or they can also create their own original designs as well.

The blocks are great for boosting fine motor, and visual thinking skills. And though the product is rated for ages 3 and up, it’s been a favorite for my 2 year old all the way to my 8 year old!

As an added bonus each side of the carrying case is magnetic, so they can build on both sides or just one. Blocks and cards easily store inside for easy storage as well! So we’ll definitely be adding Imaginets to my list of “Favorite Preschool Things!”

If you have more ideas to share, or would like to be included in future “Play To Learn” posts, please email me at homeschoolerconfessions {at} gmail {dot} com, we’d love to hear from you!

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Play To Learn: Shapes

Welcome to this week’s Play To Learn feature where we’ll be discussing fun ways to learn those shapes! There are so many fun things you can do when learning shapes, and really I think repetition is the key here. Just saying the names of the shapes over and over as you go along will help tremendously with this task. But without any further ado, here are some fun games to play at home:

Slap-It!:

Slap It! This is a fun shapes game that everyone loves to play. Mainly because they get to slap the cards with plastic wands, but the good news is they are matching shapes while doing it! (I apologize, I can’t find a direct link to this, but I did get it at Lakeshore Learning.

Playful Patterns:

Discovery Toys Playful Patterns: This is a fun game for preschoolers. It’s like the regular Wooden Pattern Blocks. but the cards are not quite as complicated. All the kids love them.

Pattern Blocks:

Patter Block Patterns! I haven’t found any pattern block patterns, just the picture cards, so I made some for our shape review.

Play-Doh Mats:

Shape Play-doh Mats: Laminate these shape cards and use them as shape templates for your play-doh learning time! Variation: Lay the cards out and have your child find objects that are the same shape and place them on the correct shape card.

Shape Tracers:

Shape Tracers: You can use this a few different ways! This download includes 10 shape tracing cards.

• Laminate and use with dry-erase to trace the shape/word
• Cut out shapes for scissor practice
• Color or trace with crayon/markers/paint
• Place stickers along the edges of each shape

Shape Puzzles:

Shape Puzzles: Cut out each shape, then cut in half along the dotted line to make shape puzzles.

Shape Sorting:

Shape Sorting: I used my Shape Cards from the Letter of the Week curriculum, and had we sorted our Large Buttons onto each shape card. You can also use the Color flashcards from the Letter of the Week as well for color sorting.

Shape Silhouette:

Shape Silhouette Match Up: Cut out the colored shapes, and match them to their corresponding shape on the outline game board.

Shape Viewers:

These are from Home Grown Hearts and they’re such a cute idea I just had to share! My kids loved using these, simply use them like binoculars to find things that are the same shape!

Those are just some of many ideas for learning shapes! If you have more ideas to share, or would like to be included in future “Play To Learn” posts, please email me at homeschoolerconfessions {at} gmail {dot} com, we’d love to hear from you!

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