The human brain is an incredible pattern-matching machine.
– Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com
Matching objects or shapes is a skill that can help children in so many areas of their lives. The process of matching images and symbols is a precursor to matching combinations of letters to words, and this, of course, is a pre-reading skill. Matching is also useful for developing math skills, as understanding one-to-one correspondence teaches spatial reasoning and pattern recognition.
Fun for travel
If you have any big trips planned, make a stack of these ahead of time and bring them along for a surprise game that might keep your child entertained through a flight’s take-off or during a long road trip.
Materials
- Stickers: at least two of each kind
- Plain paper
- Maker, crayon, or pencil
Set-up
Place the stickers in columns on two sides of the paper. Mix them up. Offer your child a pen or crayon and invite him to make lines that connect the matching images.
We always pick up stickers at Trader Joe’s — they’re perfect for this project!
If you don’t have any stickers, not to worry! This project can be done with some simple sketches. I’ve done this with simple shapes (circle, square, triangle, etc.) and a variety of expressions (happy, sad, surprised).
More Ideas
- For emergent readers: Make one column of stickers and then in the other column, write words that match the stickers.
- Rather than use columns, draw pairs of shapes or attach stickers in random spots around the piece of paper.
Get More Tinkerlab!
Have you already joined our mailing list? If not, click the button in the red bar up top and you’ll be the first to find out about new posts, free offers, and opportunities.
Can’t wait to try this with my little one! You have the best ideas ! Thank you for always inspiring creativity ! We had so much fun with the apple prints !!
Thanks so much for the lovely comment, Janelle! I’m so glad that you’re part of this community.
Are there furniture safe pens that a grandma can keep on hand?
2 year old twins that like to draw. aka scribble.
Need all the grandma ideas I can get.
Hi Lynn,
Our favorite pens are Crayola washable markers. I haven’t tried washing these out of furniture, but they do wash right out of clothes. If you’re really worried about furniture, you could stick with crayons until your grandkids are a bit older. I hope this helps!
Rachelle
There is a lot of companies, even, especially large companies do.
That way thhe users don’t have to write the full book
and put it on his own server. The food, the liquids we
consume and the air we breathe channels a lot of confusion when we talk about security and shutterfly how to Word Press.
Let’s actually take a look at the item and just what it
is?
What a great idea. My preschoolers will LOVE it!
Hi people if you can’t earn any money online try – bluehand roulette system – it earns me decent money everyday, just google
it
[…] a stack of these matching games (photo above) ahead of […]
[…] in worksheets:1. place two of each on the page and ask a child to connect pairs (example on Tinkerlab) 2. turn stickers into patterns and ask them to continue pattern (see on Tot Treasures and Stay At […]