Helpful Tips for Parents

• Science projects that span weeks — growing plants, tracking weather, observing a chrysalis — teach longitudinal observation and the patience that underlies scientific temperament.

• Teach the value of revision: show the child how making something better is part of the work. Re-doing a section to improve it is a skill that transfers to writing, coding, and design.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I handle a preschooler who wants to quit a project partway through?

First, assess whether the project is genuinely too difficult or complex for the child's current developmental level — if so, simplify or break it into a smaller scope. If the project is appropriate, address the quit impulse by reviewing progress ("Look how much you've done!"), making the next step very small and achievable ("You only need to do this one part today"), or connecting the child to the motivation ("Remember, this is a gift for grandma's birthday"). Don't force completion at the cost of the relationship or the child's relationship with making. Some projects are genuinely abandoned, and that's a valid outcome.

Related reading: See also our salt dough projects and our science experiments guide for more ideas on this topic.

🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• 🏆 Pride & Accomplishment — Completing a real project — something that works, that's given as a gift, or that solves a real problem — produces a depth of pride and accomplishment that short activities and exercises cannot generate.
• 🌍 Real-World Competence — Projects that solve real problems or produce real results — a bird feeder that birds actually use, a garden that produces food — build genuine competence and connect children to the productive adult world.
• 🎯 Attention to Detail — Projects that require precise measurements, careful steps, or quality execution teach children to slow down, pay attention to detail, and care about doing something well — not just doing it.
• 📋 Planning & Sequencing — Planning a project — identifying what's needed, sequencing steps, and working through to completion — develops the executive planning skills that academic projects, writing, and complex problem solving all require.

Ease those stressful moments with a few preschool parenting funnies.

Shapes Board

What is a Shapes Board? A Shapes Board is an educational toy, created by you, that will help your preschooler learn shapes and colors! How? Preschoolers place multi-colored rubber bands around the "pegs" (golf tees) to create different shapes. Teach your preschooler all of the many shapes there are in our world -- go beyond the common shapes, such as circle, square, triangle. Teach your preschooler other fun shapes, like octagon, hexagon and trapazoid. They're never too young to learn other shapes. You'd be surprised at what they can learn!

Materials You Will Need

• A 2 X 6 board cut into a square (this will be the main part of the Shapes Board)
• Sand paper for sanding your shapes board
• Drill and drill bits for making the holes in your Shapes Board
• Golf tees to hold the rubber bands to which you will make your shapes
• Wood glue
• Multi-colored rubber bands (plain ones can be used, too, but if you want to make it more interesting or teach colors, too, get the colored ones)
• Safety glasses
• Washable paint (optional) for coloring your Shapes Board
• Nylon tape (optional) for marking the depth on your drill

How to Make it

If you don't already have the board cut into a square board, you will need to do that first.

Step 1:**

Put on your safety glasses and drill several holes into the board. You will want to drill as many holes as you have golf tees. Be sure the drill bit is slightly larger than the diameter of the golf tee. When drilling, be careful not to drill all the way through the board. Tip: place the drill bit next to the board, lining it up so that the tip of the drill bit stops at half the depth of the thickness of the board. Place a piece of tape around the drill bit to mark where you will want to stop when drilling.

Step 2:

Sand the wood - get your preschooler involved. Give them the sand paper and show them how to rub it on the board. Show your preschooler how different the board feels before and after sanding it. Explain the difference between rough and smooth.

Step 3 (Optional):

Let your preschooler paint the wood with bright, bold colors. Talk about the colors your preschooler uses. Which is his or her favorite? Allow to dry.

Step 4:

One by one, fill each hole with a small dab of wood glue. Let your preschooler choose and place a golf tee in each hole as you fill it with glue.

Step 5:

Now the hard part - set it aside for a couple of hours to dry.

Step 6:

Have fun! Let you preschooler choose and stretch different colored rubber bands around the golf tees to create different shapes. Take turns creating and naming the shapes. Talk about the straight lines, count the number of sides of each shape, and name the colors of the rubber bands.

How to Liven it Up

Have your preschooler make a shape and give out tickles for each side the shape has!

My Two Cents

My husband, son, and I created a shapes board using nails. Instead of drilling holes into the board and gluing golf tees into the holes, we just pounded nails into the board. After creating it, I discovered that the method described above was a much better idea. If you choose to use nails, I recommend you supervise your preschooler's play with it.

Remember...

When doing a project with tools (hand or power), be sure to name the tools and explain to your preschooler what each tool is for. This will not only teach your preschooler the names of tools and w