Shapes Sorting Suncatcher

Shape Sorting Activity for Toddlers

This is such a delightful invitation for young toddlers to create beautiful suncatchers and learn about basic shapes at the same time!

What do kids learn in this activity?

1) Shapes, 2) sorting and 3) fine motor skills as the little hands stick the little shape pieces on the suncatchers.

What ages is this activity for?

This activity is wonderful for 2 to 3 years old toddlers as they begin to learn about shapes.

Contact paper is sticking made easy for kids!

Are you good friends with contact paper yet? Contact paper is a sure win with toddlers, especially if they love stickers but get so frustrated with peeling the backings of the stickers off.

What do we need?

Scrapbook 12” by 12” papers
Contact paper
Basic stationery like sticky tape, a pair of scissors and marker
Small shape cut outs. We used a variety of materials: felt, foam and cellophane paper. Amazon sells felt/foam stickers in different shapes and you can find them here and here. Or you can simply cut them out yourself.

How to make these shape sorting suncatcher?

Cut out big frames in four basic shapes (circle, rectangle, square and triangle) and 1” thickness from the scrapbook papers.
Place each frame on the contact paper and trace the hole in each frame. Cut the contact paper shapes out, leaving at least a 0.5” allowance all around. The contact paper should be slightly bigger than the hole but smaller than the entire frame.

Now stick the contact paper shapes onto the frames. I find it easiest to put the frame on a clean table surface, peel off the paper and place the contact paper, sticky side down on the frame. Secure the contact paper to the frames with sticky tapes. Then carefully peel the frame with contact paper off the table.

Place the suncatchers, sticky side out, on a large window. Secure the suncatchers with sticky tapes.
Prepare a basket of small shape cutouts with different materials and set it beside the suncatchers.

We did this same activity twice, once when my son was 2.5yo and another time, when my daughter was almost 2 during our weather theme month. Be sure to check out our weather theme learning shelf for more hands on learning activities! Share a photo with me if you make one too!

Need more ideas to use the whole roll of contact paper?