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When I first read the Dr. Seuss book, The Shape of Me and Other Stuff I was immediately reminded of a fun activity that my sister and I used to do when we were kids. We used sunlight to fade construction paper and make prints of things. I knew my kiddos would enjoy this simple and EASY shape activity as well!
First, I just read the book to the girls. The book features outline shapes of many different objects, and in typical Seussian fashion, some are real and some are, well, Seussian. Then we went around the house and gathered a basket full of little things that were interesting shapes. I encouraged them to find things that were flat-ish, but ultimately let them choose what to use.
We took our objects outside, along with some sheets of construction paper. Nowadays, they make 'fancy' construction paper is made to not fade. You'll want the cheap stuff for this project, so that it will fade. The girls arranged their objects on the paper. (*No judging, please, of my desperately-in-need-of-a-pressure-wash-patio.*)
Then we just let everything sit for several hours. The day we did this was mostly overcast, with a few minutes of sunshine here and there. If we had left our objects and paper out longer, or if it had been a sunnier day, the paper would certainly have faded more and made the shapes more prominent. We were impatient.
We took everything back inside and had a good time matching the objects back up to their shapes. For Maggie (age 2), I set out only the objects that she needed for each separate sheet of paper. For Lena (age 4), I just gave her the whole basket with the papers spread out in front of her and let her puzzle her way through matching it all back up!
There you have it! A simple and easy project for a Dr. Seuss week!
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See this and lots of other Dr. Seuss activities on the Cutting Tiny Bites Dr. Seuss themed Pinterest board!
