Cognitive Development
FEATS TechniquesIdentifying & Recalling Items by Touch
“So Close You Can Feel It” MATERIALS: You will need: a shoe box or...
Placing Beads on a String (Randomly; By Color; By Number)
“Threadin’ The Needle” MATERIALS: A long, thin shoestring and a bucket of...
Learning to Cut with Scissors
“Has Anyone Seen The Other Half of My Necktie?!” First, determine if your...
Understanding Positional Concepts (first, middle, last, closet, farthest)
“Position Acquisition” Gather small objects from your child’s toys such...
Matching Groups That Have the Same Numbers of Objects in Them
“Budding Architect” MATERIALS: 20 index cards or paper cut into small,...
Tracing Own Name
“Sign On The Dotted Line” To help your child learn to trace over letters...
Sight-Reading One’s Own Name
“Hey Mom, That’s ME (albeit represented in letter form)!” MATERIALS: 8-10...
Coloring Inside Shapes and Pictures
“Between The Lines” Make circles on white paper that are at...
Drawing a Square, Triangle, and More Complex Shapes
“My Little Picasso!” ACTIVITY: Your child imitates drawings...
Putting Shapes Together to Match A Design
“Match Game ’77 With Gene Rayburn” MATERIALS: Straws, pipe cleaners cut...
Naming Familiar Objects When Shown An Incomplete Picture of the Object
“Is It One Vase or Two Faces?” MATERIALS: A variety of familiar objects...
Identifying the Numbers 1 through 5
“It’s all a numbers game” MATERIALS: 5 index cards, each with a number...
Identifying and Counting Quantities of 1, 2, 3, & 4
“One-by-One, This Is Fun, Two-by-Two” ACTIVITY: When shown one to four...
Counting by Rote and with one-to-one correspondence
“You Can Count On It” MATERIALS: 20 blocks (or other like objects) Line...
Visually Matching Identical Letters in a Group of Different Letters
“Reading…The Only One Of The Three R’s That Begins With “R” Activity:...
Grouping Objects by two or more different characteristics
“Birds of a Feather Flock Together” Before teaching this skill, your...
Categorizing Objects and Pictures
“You’ve got quite an organization here” Categorizing is important because...
Marking and Writing: Drawing Lines and Circles
“Draw your own conclusion” Marking and writing are important skills...
Completing Form-boards, Shape-sorters, and Puzzles
“Puzzling” Encourage your child to become aware of things that go...
Putting together toys and objects
“Get yourself together” Assembling toys and objects is “MAGICAL” because...
Stacking
“How do I Stack Up?” Stacking is an important developmental task because...
Imitating new and familiar gestures
“Monkey See, Monkey Do” Imitation is a key component in acquiring,...
Perpetuating Interactive Games
“Tag, You’re it” Continuing interactive games is important because...
Finding Hidden Toys
“Treasure Hunt” This skill is important because it opens up a child’s...
Improving Eye Contact
“Eye See You!” Increasing eye contact will help your child become more...
“Attention!”
Increasing your child’s attention span will help him become more...
Using Hands to Manipulate Objects
(Transferring, Crossing Midline, Using two hands together) “Manipulative...
Obtaining and Holding onto Objects
“You Little Go-Getter” Using problem-solving skills to obtain and hold...
Visually Focusing on & Tracking Objects
“On the Fast-Track” Visually focusing on and tracking objects is an...