Construction Paper Shapes into A,B,C Animals

I have been trying something new lately and that is to do crafty stuff with my kids. Browsing around at all the great stuff out there, I had a ton of construction paper but not many ideas that were suited to our situation.

My son is a late-talker yet knows a lot of other information already. He already knows his alphabet and its sounds, uppercase and lowercase, and all of their signs in sign language. He knows a lot of animals. So I thought a paper craft to use up some of this construction paper putting letters together to form words of animals he knows would be challenging and something new for him.

They are simple but I've seen positive results from it. He says the letters, then the word they form, so there's his early reading (that's the goal anyway). I'm also using this to teach emotion, so he calls each animal 'happy' too which is really cute. Everyday, it hangs on the wall and he describes it like ten times a day. My future animal groups will be mad, confused, etc. Can't wait!

This is our A-N-T, our happy ant. He does look happy right?

Elijah knows a lot of shapes already, even crescent, but this is an excellent way to practice and make sure he stores them into his memory. I talk to him about the colors, asking him questions like, "what color or letter or shape is this?" Monica is napping so it's a nice hour or two of just casually interacting that I'm hoping will increase his talking.

Our new shapes were half-circle and I called the antennae zig-zags :) .
  

My son isn't great at gluing and cutting so obviously I helped guide his hands a lot! It's my fault, I haven't done this with him near enough as I should have.

 

Short sentences to practice short words and become familiar with how they look written.

It's hard because I don't want to go so far that he's confused but I want him to be challenged with something new. I thought that I would spend his 3rd year entirely on letters and numbers but it seems like you have to prepared to be unprepared...sheesh.

 

We do one a day, not on weekends when daddy's home, but he's already getting a bit better at gluing. Although, I am kind of a control freak and am heavily helping him put them in the right spot.

Here's B and C...

 

New shape was a tear drop. Little sister actually got a hold of this and ripped it apart, but it still looks good. Keep your paper crafts away from the smaller ones!

 New shape was a football. The eyes, paws, and tail weren't real shapes. I was a little pressed for time since I didn't prep this one. Prep work is a challenge!

I hope to make A-Z animals and A-Z objects and put them all in a binder in those clear page protectors so that he can write on the sentences in the back.

Love,

Amanda & Cubs