As little ones learn their shapes, rectangles are bound to be part of the fun. Because learning is always more entertaining when “doing” rather than just “hearing,” organize a few rectangle craft projects for your youngster. Get busy cutting out a variety of construction paper rectangles for your child, in different sizes and colors, as the main material for nifty crafting projects. Providing kids with shapes with which to create may help them learn, advise Jandy Jeppson and Judith A. Myers-Walls, Ph.D., CFLE, with Purdue University.
Show your little one pictures of various animals as inspiration for making rectangle animals. Include a giraffe, dog, horse, bird, tiger and snake, for example. Help your child choose an animal to create using the construction paper rectangles you have prepared. Once chosen, it’s time to grab the glue and make the animal come alive on a sheet of background paper. If your child chooses a giraffe, show her how to use a long, thin rectangle for the neck, a larger and wider rectangle for the body and a small rectangle for the head. Give your child a hand positioning and gluing, if necessary. Encourage your child to add legs, a tail, ears, a face and spots, too.
Grab a handful of construction paper rectangles and talk about them for a minute with your youngster. Notice how they all have two matching long sides and two matching short sides, but they can be big, little, long, short, fat and thin. Don’t forget -- rectangles can be any color, too. Suggest making a rectangle collage to spotlight rectangles of all sizes and colors. Give your little one a large sheet of paper, some glue and all the rectangle shapes she wants to make a colorful collage.
You’ll need about 20 to 25 construction paper rectangles to make a funky snake. Before introducing this project, go through the rectangle pieces and poke a small hole in the center of each with the tip of a pencil. Provide one chenille stem and show your little one how to poke the chenille stem through the hole in each rectangle. Keep adding rectangles, and pretty soon he’ll have a long, slinky snake of rectangles strung along the length of the fuzzy stem. Draw some eyes on the first rectangle, and suddenly it looks like a snake!
A house features lots of rectangle shapes that make it perfect for creating out of construction paper shapes. Provide one big one -- about 10 inches by 8 inches. Help your tot glue it onto a sheet of background paper. Once done, it’s time to add the windows and doors to the house using the prepared construction paper shapes. Your tot could even use a long, thin rectangle shape for the trunk of a tree in the yard. Draw a roof and the leaves of the tree and the shape picture is finished.
- Brand X Pictures/Brand X Pictures/Getty Images