Use these printable bunny shape mats to teach children about shapes, all while strengthening their hands and fingers.
“Little bunny Foo Foo hopping through the forest . . .”
I have to admit, that song has been stuck in my head the entire time we’ve used these rabbit shapes. Hopefully it’s not stuck in your head now, too!
If you’re a regular Fun-A-Day reader, you know I’m not a fan of worksheets . . . but I do love a good printable. Coupled with hands-on activities, printables are a great tool to have in the ol’ teaching arsenal. Bonus if the printables can be used multiple ways.
And these printable bunny shape mats can definitely be used a few different ways. I’ll share how we use them below, but feel free to put your own creative spin on them. And then tell me about it, as I’m always looking for new ideas.
Related: Fantastic Easter Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers
Printable Bunny Shape Mats
Here’s how to make your own set of printable rabbit shapes to use with the kids. If you try them out, I’d love to see how you’ve used them. Feel free to share on Fun-A-Day’s Facebook page, or tag me in any Instragam photos.
While I know rabbits make everyone think of Easter, I also think these shape mats would work well during a general spring theme, a forest theme, a pet theme, or whenever the kids are learning more about animals.
Related: Forest Animal Play Dough Small World
Materials you may need for the rabbit shapes
You might not need all of these materials, but here’s what we used.
Free printable bunny mats (grab them at the bottom of this post)
Laminator
Play dough (homemade or store bought)
Mini erasers
Dry erase markers
Prepping the shape mats
Print out whichever mats you’d like to use. You can print them on card stock to make them thicker, but regular printer paper will work just fine.
I highly suggest that you laminate the mats. If you want, you can back them with some colorful construction paper before laminating them, as well. We just left the mats as is this time around.
If you don’t want to laminate them, place the shape mats in sheet protectors to ensure they last longer. If using play dough, the laminated versions work best.
Then grab the other materials you want to use along with the bunny mats, and you’re good to go!
How to use the printable rabbit shapes
As I mentioned above, the bunny shape mats can be used multiple ways. Here are just a few ideas to get you started:
Related: 50+ Easter Egg Activities for the Kids
Bring on the play dough to strengthen little hands
Play dough was the first thing we brought out to use with the bunnies. While I love making my own play dough, this time around it was just easier to grab some store bought. Either works just fine with the rabbit shapes.
You can set the (laminated!) shape mats out and let the kids explore them however they want when it comes to the play dough. Strike up a conversation about the different shapes found on each bunny mat. Laugh a little, as they are rather silly looking bunnies.
Encourage the children to use the play dough to form the shape of each bunny mat.
Related: Textured Rainbow Confetti Play Dough
They could add all the extras too, if they want – ears, eyes, whiskers, etc.
The kids could even use the play dough to trace over the shape description at the top of each mat.
Maybe the children could craft little shape bunnies to go with each mat. As always, it’s fun to watch and see how the kids extend an activity like this.
Use mini erasers for fine motor practice
Many young children love using mini erasers. I have to admit, preschool teachers have a blast with them too! Or is that just me?
Set out the printable bunny shapes (clean of any play dough!), along with mini erasers. We got our mini erasers from the Target $3 spot, but there are some Easter mini erasers on Amazon that might work well.
Related: Spring Say It, Write It, Build It Alphabet Mat
Children can use the little erasers to trace around the edge of each bunny shape. For an extra challenge, have the kids count how many erasers it took to make the shapes.
They might also point out smaller shapes they find (like the little triangle bunny nose)!
They can also use the erasers to make the shape words at the top of the mat.
You could even encourage them to try to make their own, smaller versions of the shapes with the erasers.
Dry eraser markers for early writing practice
Grab some colorful dry erase markers to pair with the printable bunny mats. Children can trace over the large shapes on the big bunnies, as well as the small shapes on the smaller bunnies.
Related: Counting Flowers Printable Emergent Reader
The kids can also trace over the shape words at the top of the mats, or perhaps they’d like to write the words independently.
Children might also want to use the dry erase markers to just draw over and around the shape mats. I think that’s perfectly fine, too!
Now that I’ve shown you what we did, be sure to let me know how you use the rabbit shape mats!
More Early Childhood Resources
If you’re a busy teacher (and I suppose having the word “busy” there is a bit redundant . . . aren’t all teachers busy?), I’d love for you to check out the many done-for-you teacher resources we have at Preschool Teacher 101.
There are lesson plans, math resources, journal printables, and many more teacher resources available. Here are a few you might be interested in (just click on the photo for more information):
Grab the Free Printable Bunny Shape Mats
The shape rabbit mats are available to members of Fun-A-Day’s email community. Click on the button below to get your own copy and be added to our email group for even more early childhood resources. Please note that downloading means you agree to my terms of use.
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