Kids love to do hands-on projects. We can use that as an opportunity to reinforce a lot of important skills. This fun snowman project helps kids identify and describe shapes, practice counting and writing numbers, and hone their fine motor skills.

Supplies needed

-colored construction paper
-scissors
-glue
-hole punch
-felt (optional)
-craft items for the buttons and eyes (pom poms, round jewels, round stickers, etc)
-traceable circular objects

Directions

1. Using the size of the construction paper “canvas” as a guide, help your child go on a circle hunt around the house for two objects that can be traced to make the body of the snowman. Use the words large and small to describe the circles. Option: Use three circular objects so that there is a small, medium, and large circle.
2. Help your child trace the objects on white construction paper then have her cut them out and glue onto the canvas.
3. Have your child use the hole punch and black construction paper to punch out circles for the mouth. Count them as she punches them out.
4. Using orange construction paper or orange felt, draw a triangle for the nose and cut out. Talk about triangles having exactly three sides.
5. Make a scarf out of construction paper or felt by cutting two long rectangles. Make small cuts on one end of each rectangle creating the fringe. Discuss rectangles: shapes that have exactly four sides and four corners that make an ‘L’ shape. (Note: squares are special rectangles that have sides all the same length.)
6. Using brown construction paper, cut out rectangular “sticks” for the snowman arms.
7. Cut out two rectangles for the hat using black construction paper or felt.
8. Glue all the pieces to the snowman including the eyes and “buttons”. If you are using pom poms, describe them as 3-dimensional shapes we call spheres. (The 3-dimensions are length, width, and height.)
9. Help your child count how many of each geometric shape was used in the snowman and record them.