“You’ve got quite an organization here”
Categorizing is important because it:
1. Increases awareness of similarities and differences;
2. Increases a child’s ability to learn later concepts such as size, shape, and color;
3. Increases a child’s ability to make visual and conceptual discriminations (which are pre-requisite skills for letter and number recognition as well as math and spelling operations).
ACTIVITIES:
*Prepare snacks with different shaped crackers.
*Give instructions such as, “Give one block to Mommy and put the other one on the table”
*Point out one specific object when walking (e.g., all leaves; all stop signs).
*Cleaning up after mealtime (e.g., put all spoons in the drawer and all bowls in the cabinet).
*Match object-to-object (e.g., 2 shoes)
*Match picture-to-object (e.g., match a picture of a ball to a real ball)
*Match shape-to-shape (e.g., with blocks of the same size)
*Match color-to-color (e.g., with Lego or painted wooden blocks)
*Match objects/pictures to similar objects/pictures (e.g. boots with shoes; spoons with forks)
*Sorting objects (e.g., present 8 objects, 4 books, and 4 shoes)
*Sorting pictures (e.g., present 8 pictures, 4 of an apple, 4 of a house)
*Sorting shapes (e.g., present 8 shapes, 4 circles, 4 triangles)
*Sorting colors (e.g., present 16 Legos; 4 colors, each with 4 pieces)
*Identify incomplete pictures (e.g., try to identify partially covered pictures)
*Identify different shapes from fields of others (e.g., o o m o )
