Shape making activity cards

I wanted to organised an activity which met the needs of both of the children I care for, the children are 4 year old twins but have different interest and require different support with development. M is very creative and will sit for hours painting drawing and mark making. Where as J is easily distracted and quickly losses interest with such activities. I needed a new and different activity which could be structured enough to encourage M to be creative with different tools and skills yet free to create and do what J wanted to do for as long as he wished too. 

I printed and laminated some basic shapes with the name of each shape printed on it too. 

I then put them in a silver tin box along with some coloured craft sticks, lolly sticks and straws cut at different lengths, which made it seem like a completely new thing instead of just another craft activity. 

I then left the tin and activity cards out on the table and let them both discover it when they were ready too. (which wasn't long!) They both looked at the resources before asking "what have we got to do with these?" I replied with "what do you want to do with it?" By this point M had already taking one of the cards and started exploring the straws whilst J was rummaging in the tins pulling out all the lolly sticks. 

M then started to use the craft sticks to place over the top of the star shape to create a star. J was asking me to help in name the shapes, I took this opportunity to encourage some letter and phonics learning by getting him to help read the words and repeat the name of the shape to me afterwards. M then announced how she knows already which one she had and pointed to each letter making the phonetic sound before saying "star".  This has given them both new words such as pentagon and hexagon as well as learning about how a rectangle has two short sides and two long sides where as a square has four sides the same size. 

We then spoke about how many sides the shape have and counted how many straws or sticks we needed to make each shape. 

They both then sat and created the different shapes talking to each other about which ones they were doing and colours they've chosen to create it. J then used straws to create his own rectangle on the table with out the card. I asked him what he's made to which he replied "I made a rectangle, look its got two long sides and two short ones here, you see!?" 

M then created her own picture of a map with two "X marks the spots", blue sticks for water and green for grass. 

This simple and easy activity has enabled both children to develop their fine motor skills, numeracy and literacy skills, needed for starting school.