Toddlers always love the chance for a little splashy water play, and here’s a way to combine that with shape review!

To start, I used marker to draw a few shapes on a regular piece of white paper. I also labeled them for early sight words, although Veronika is a ways off from understanding that.

Place this piece of paper under any clear baking dish. Ideally use a large casserole dish, but even my smaller cake pan worked in a pinch. Fill the clear dish with a shallow layer of water. If your child wants colored water, go ahead and add a few drops of food coloring! But Veronika wanted to leave it clear.

Now, simply call out the name of a shape and your child can pinpoint it under the water! If you’re using a large dish, you could have a clear cup on top that your child moves from shape to shape. That wouldn’t fit in the cake pan, so Veronika used a shiny pipe cleaner as a pointer instead.

She aced this test in moments.

Even once we quickly ran through the shapes, she had so much fun looking at the shapes and swirling around the pipe cleaner for a while. Because as mentioned, toddlers always love water play!