Christmas (Playing) Cards

We have several sets of Christmas playing cards in our house.  Mr. Three loves to open things up like that and dump them all over the floor.  While I was cleaning up one set of cards, I noticed that the Christmas shapes that were used for the suits were all shapes that I had foam stickers of as well.  That got the wheels turning in my head.  For once, I'm happy that my little mischief-making Mr. Three made a mess, because I came up with a fun little preschool game.

First, I dumped out all of the foam shape stickers and had Mr. Two sort them, putting any shapes that didn't match the suits of the cards in a little bowl to the side of the sorting tray.

After we had our four shapes, I placed the set of playing cards (the snowmen) in the center section of the tray (pulling out all of the non-numerical cards and putting them aside first).

Mr. Two drew a card, and placed the corresponding number of shapes on the rectangle tray.  When he was finished, he put the shapes back in the sorting tray and the card in the small dish, then drew a new card.  This was a fun way to practice counting.

I may try and pull this out later and have him play with his older brother or myself, each person drawing and card and counting out the number of shapes to compare.  Or maybe we'll just play war with the cards!