What matching games for kids teach spatial relations?
Will your child be ready for Kindergarten math? This activity will lay the foundation to get him there. The activity is called Building and it teaches spatial relations. Spatial relation is how an object is located in space in relation to another object.
Why Use Matching Games for Kids
Matching games like this teach important pre-math skills that will prepare your child for Kindergarten. When your child understands these skills, it will build a strong foundation for all elementary math skills. Without this strong foundation, your child will have a difficult time visualizing abstract concepts, which of course, math is full of. This activity teaches or prepares your child for the following skills:
- Abstract Reasoning
- Spatial Relations
- Analyze, compare, create, and compose shapes
I loosely based these printables on the Fish Builders from the Letter F week from Confessions of a Homeschooler. Her printables are for preschoolers, whereas my curriculum is for toddlers and young preschoolers. So, my printables are much simpler, which makes them perfect for 2-3 year olds.
How to Use Building Printables
This “building” printable comes from my Toddler Curriculum. It’s from the E is for Extinct unit. If you want to know how to use other preschool printables, check out my How to Use Preschool Printables post for lots of different printables directions. Today I am going to tell you all about how to use building printables. If you don’t have printables specifically for building, never fear! You can just use regular matching cards.
I always start by laminating. (I use this laminator and this printer in case you’re interested). Laminating is of course optional, but since the laminating sheets I buy are so cheap, it’s worth it to me to make the pictures a lot more durable. Basically what you do is cut out one set of pictures into individual cards and leave the other set whole. Have your child arrange the pictures in the same order next to (but not on top of) the whole set of pictures. Check the pictures below to see what I mean.
The simple act of having the pictures next to the whole set of pictures makes it much more difficult to put the pictures in the correct order. If this activity is too difficult for your child, you can always have him or her use the cards like regular matching cards. Just have your toddler put each cut picture onto the matching picture on the whole page.
Matching Games for Kids Teach Spatial Relations
Doing building is a wonderful way to teach spatial relations. I am always surprised by how hard building type activities can be even for Little Bear who is almost 6. Smiley Man still needs help to complete printables like this, but he is getting better the more we practice. Use matching games for kids to teach your child lots of pre-math skills. This will really help him once it’s time for kindergarten.
Other Matching Games for Kids to Teach Spatial Awareness
- Zoob Jr. (comes with 8 instruction cards)
- Color Cube Task Cards
- Another Color Cube Activity Set
- Pattern Blocks and Pattern Block Activity Pack or Beginner Pattern Blocks
- Excellerations Spatial Relations Playset
- Castle Logix (see my review here)
- 3-D Spatial Relations Activity Set
- Sort & Snap Color Match