Young
children make sense of the objects in the world by putting them into
categories. Indeed, a baby's earliest experiences with nursery rhymes, finger
play songs and books often involve concepts of shapes, colors and size.
Educational toys also teach these concepts as forms fit into boards, shapes
into sorters and smaller containers are nested inside larger ones.
The following game is designed to teach your child how objects not only fit
into a category but that they can fit into more than one at the same time.
categories. Indeed, a baby's earliest experiences with nursery rhymes, finger
play songs and books often involve concepts of shapes, colors and size.
Educational toys also teach these concepts as forms fit into boards, shapes
into sorters and smaller containers are nested inside larger ones.
The following game is designed to teach your child how objects not only fit
into a category but that they can fit into more than one at the same time.
How to Play
This game may be played in two different ways. I recommend printing out the
pages. Read the directions and ask your child to point to the answers. Each
page has one picture that was seen on the previous page. Ask your child to find
this picture. This will help her to develop visual memory and realize that although
an object such as a ball is on the "round" page, it can also be on the "green" page.
Your child might also enjoy clicking on the answer after you read the directions.
The correct answer will appear when clicked. She may also click on the category
word in the sentence below and the two pictures in this category will appear. Ask
your child to name as many objects as she can in these categories. Point to or
gather the objects in the environment that fit into these categories.
Children are never too young to look at pictures. Point to, name and describe the
objects in this game and other books. This will help babies as young as 10-12
months of age to develop the skills to attend to pictures and categorize over the
next couple of years. Younger children can play this game by pointing to a
picture as you name it or describe only one characteristic such as the shape.
Older children can play the game by finding the one picture that fits into both
categories such as the "round" and "green" ball.
Child Development
Between 12 and 18 months of age children demonstrate an understanding of color
and size as they explore form boards and place smaller plastic containers inside
larger ones. They also learn how to point to the named objects in the environment
or in pictures. The "Where is Pointer?" song is also popular for this age group.
Between 15 and 18 months children can typically identify which objects are not
exactly the same as other objects in a group. During the second half of this year,
children learn to match animals to their sounds and of course, many toys, books
and songs reinforce these associations.
Matching skills develop in a sequential order. Children learn to first match identical
(preferably familiar) objects to objects between 15-19 months. Next they learn to
match objects to pictures between 19 and 27 months. Photographs are easier to
match than drawings. Children typically learn to match similar pictures of objects
between 30 and 36 months. The popular game Lotto reinforces skills to match
drawings of familiar objects.
At around this time children also learn to sort into groups of identical objects. It is
easiest to start teaching this skill using groups of very different objects such as
clothespins, apples and toy animals. Then try more similar objects such as apples,
bananas and blueberries (which share the category of food).
Between 24 and 30 months children learn to match the circle, triangle and square
shapes and match colors- (first black and white; primary colors a bit later between
29-33 months). Two- year-olds also start to identify objects with their use- i.e. the
brush is for getting the tangles out of the hair.
As children reach close to three years of age, they develop the skills to look at
a group of three simple pictures of objects and identify which two are the
same. Between three and three and a half years of age they learn to sort colors
and complete 3-4 piece puzzles. These early discrimination skills will help
children to play the "Categories Game".
Let's Begin the Game
