Color Sorting, Shape Learning and Counting Practice

We have a couple of bins of different manipulatives that Zayit can play with any time he wants.  They are right on top of his bookshelf/toy box.  There is a bin of pompoms, a bin of three dimensional shapes and another of card games (ok, so that isn't exactly a manipulative, but it is still educational!).  Today he asked for the shapes.  He dug through our "props" and decided upon colored plates (from The Party Store, I think they are actually mini flying discs for party favors) and started sorting his shapes by color.  

He always starts with cones.  Not sure why, but that seems to be his favorite shape in this set.  After he gets a few cones, I can then start to ask for specific colors and shapes.  Today we focused on spheres and how a ball is a sphere.  'Sphere' is a bit difficult for him to say, but he gave it a good try.  We practiced our shapes, colors and counting.  He can now count out up to 12 objects for me!  And this was all his idea!    

He played with these for a good 20 minutes, which in my book, for a toddler, that's an eternity!  When he's done, he's done - easy cleanup.  He just dumps the colored plates back into the bin.  Happy Zayit, happy Mommi.  

We got the three dimensional shapes from Oriental Trading - but I can't find them on their website any longer.  The closest product I could find on a quick Google search can be found here.

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