Put your junk mail to good use and make an All About Me poster! Armed with a stack of grocery flyers, toy store ads, circulars and a few simple art supplies, your preschooler can make a cool poster AND he’ll get some hands-on sorting practice, a key early math skill.
What You Need:
- Junk mail ads (grocery circulars, toy store advertisements, etc.)
- Newspaper
- Safety scissors
- Markers
- Glue stick
- Poster board
What You Do:
- Protect your table by laying down some newspaper, then gather an assortment of advertisements, a glue stick, and a pair of safety scissors. Tell your child he’s going to create a poster, full of pictures of all the things he loves. While this project will seem like simple arts-and-crafts to your preschooler, it actually works on an important early math skill: sorting and categorization. So give your child a few categories of pictures to look for, such as favorite foods, favorite toys, favorite animals, or any other set you think he’d like to include. Ideally, the poster should include 2-5 categories.
- As he cuts them out, have your child group the pictures. He should put all of the foods in one pile, all of the animals in another, and so on. Once he’s collected a few of each category, ask him to glue each set onto the poster board.
- Why does your child like each of these things? You’ll never know if you don’t ask! Listen to him tell you what he loves about each item, then record what he says underneath its picture. With his input, create a title for the poster, then hang it up for all to see!
- Not only does this project provide a fun, hands-on way for preschoolers to practice sorting, but it also adds some colorful personality to a room. And a few years down the road, you’ll be amazed at what this “time capsule” tells you about your suddenly big kid.