Preschool Project of the Week - Using Simple Shapes to create pictures

Using simple shapes to construct recognizable objects is an important visual perception skill for little ones! The last couple weeks at preschool, we’ve been talking about “Transportation” – a big word that little kids like to learn how to say. :) Quite simply, we’ve been learning about things that go, or things that take you places. So we used shapes to “build” a truck, though with this craft, there is no limit to what you can construct with your shapes.

Preschool Project of the Week – using Basic Shapes to Construct a Truck
Preschool Skills: fine motor/hand and eye coordination (gluing and assembling), shape recognition, visual perception, reasoning
For this project you’ll need various colors of construction paper cut in to the following shapes:

Large Rectangle for the trailer
Square for the cab
Three big circles for wheels
Three smaller circles in a different color for the inside of the wheels
Small squares for window and light and a small rectangle for the front.

Plus, you’ll need a larger sheet of paper (or a few sheets taped together) to assemble it all on and glue.

And from there, it’s just a matter of putting it together! You can talk about the shapes/colors/etc.

I tried to include a picture below to show you what the finished product looks like. I have one put together that I hang up for the kids to see and allow them to decide what pieces belong where. I always ask them to think about what they should use first. Most of the time they pick the large rectangle, which is correct. Then we do the cab and the wheels then add the detailing on the cab. But it’s much better for them to show them the finished product and help them reason through the steps, than just saying, “put this shape here and this one here.”

Here is our finished truck: