Your child can learn about geometry, symmetry and pattern—all with some craft felt. This is an activity that grows with your little learner, letting you build on it or adapt it as your child grows. Along with adapting it for your child as she learns and grows, you can make it more (or less) complex if you have children of different ages (meaning that all the kids can join in).
What will this math-art activity help your child to learn (or how will it help her develop)? Well, obviously she’ll get to explore basic math concepts. It also helps her to build problem-solving skills, critical thinking abilities and creativity. She’ll work on her fine motor development and also get to explore some science (sensory play and the winter season).
Before beginning this activity talk about winter. If your child hasn’t gotten the chance to see or play in the snow yet, take a look at photos or video of it. Get up close with a snowflake, or two. You can help her to hold one on her mitten or look at a picture from a book. Keep in mind, this activity won’t end up with a “snowflake” that looks realistic. Instead, it’s an artistic interpretation—which is a great way to open up the discussion and talk about creativity.
Winter Craft
Here’s What You’ll Need:
- Craft felt (8x10-inch sheets or larger)
- Scissors
- Optional: Tempera paint and brushes or glue
Cut a circle from a piece of craft felt. Make the circle roughly the size of a soccer ball (or the diameter of the craft felt sheet). Older kids can use a compass to draw the circle or a ruler to measure points from the center (discussing words such as radius and circumference). Younger kids can use their own new vocab too—the word circle!
Make more shapes. Cut squares, diamonds, rectangles, triangles and circles in smaller sizes from different colors of craft felt. Keep in mind, these are artistic snowflakes. This means that they don’t have to be white. They may wind up looking like snowflake rainbows.
Press the large circle onto another piece of felt (as a background). Optional: Your child (after learning about the circle), can fold it and cut a snowflake border. When she opens it up, she’ll start learning about symmetry.
Press the smaller shapes onto the circle/snowflake shape. Your child can create patterns or use symmetry to make something that looks similar to cut-out paper snowflakes.
Optional: Glue the felt together. Or, you can take it apart and your child can reuse it anytime as a DIY felt board.
Optional: Add paint to the felt. Use bold colors or coat the felt with a shimmery snow-like silver or opal.
FUN Winter Crafts & Activities
- 100 Winter Activities for Kids
- Winter Coloring Sheets
- Historical Snow Candy
- Snowman Preschool Worksheets
- S is for Snowman Week
- Puffy Snow Paint
- Squirt Gun Snow Painting
- How to Make Snow Ice Cream
Erica Loop is a mom, parenting writer and educator with an MS in child development. When she's not teaching, she's busy writing kids' activities for her blog Mini Monets and Mommies. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, and Instagram.
