Play Activities

Play Activities

Color Fun for Understanding Same and Different

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Understanding same and different begins about the age of three and up. Like other reasoning abilities, this develops as kids play.

A set of 4 colored mats can be a very practical toy. They are bright and colorful as well as soft  for some whole body fun and make a quiet landing space for play with blocks. The edges sort of zip off so the mats can be combined in a variety of ways.

understanding same and differentLittle Sister wanted the mats do some exercises while I did mine. Most of her exercise, both mental and physical, happened as she put the mats together. First, she zipped off the edges and set one mat on the floor. She attached another to one end and made a long, straight road. Then, she put the edges back on, but this time she choose different colors. When she only had 3 edges left, she had to stop and look several times so she didn’t have any edges that matched the big squares. She thought of a solution by putting some of the edge pieces on the ends rather than the side.

understanding same and differentSame or different is usually pretty evident to us so we assume it is for children too. To be able to judge though if two things are the same, kids have to look at specific parts of objects.

Very  young children are confused when a familiar adult shaves a beard or gets new glasses. It takes time for them to sort out that this is the same person even though something is different. Older kids may still have issues with same and different. A sandwich cut in squares inside of in triangles is not the same. It may taste the same, it may look the same, it may have the exact same ingredients, but somehow it is too different.

As your child plays, you can ask if two or more items are same or different. Talk about them when there is an opportunity. Check things out together and look at colors. Although this seems easy, think of how precise the skill needs to be to tell the difference between a ‘b’ and a ‘d’ or a ‘9’ and a ‘6.’ As with other thinking skills, kids will need practice and play is the most fun for understanding same and different. How will your child play today?

Play Activities

Color and Shape Activities for Kids

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Two of fall’s colors are brown as summer-green fades and grey for cool, overcast skies but play can combine some bright color and shape activities for kids.

toys for math funBlocks come in a variety of shapes and colors as well as materials. While children are building with blocks, it’s easy to mention the names of colors and talk about them. This tower has a yellow triangle on the very top. There’s a circle on the red square block. A blue square is the same size as the red square. This incidental matching of the color and shape names  helps kids connect to the words and remember them. Besides blocks, there are other toys such as Lego and Duplo that have different colors and shapes.

toys for math funMost of the time we think of shapes as circles, triangles, rectangles and squares. These are regular shapes but there are irregular ones too. Shapes and colors are part of puzzles and even if kids don’t know the names for them, they can use them as a strategy for putting a puzzle together. To fit the pieces where they go, kids need to check if the shapes fit and the colors match. Being wrong about where a puzzle piece goes is all part of the process. It’s okay to do lots of trying.

color and shape activitiesMosaics are another toy that uses colors and shapes. The shapes are regular to start with, but kids can use them to make many other kinds of shapes. And kids aren’t the only ones. The child-made design on the floor looks very much like this adult-made one in a dome.

sensory play with play doughKids can also use play dough for color and shape activities. The shapes can be either regular or irregular or both at the same time. Plasticine stretched and smooshed on a paper plate makes a round world, complete with rainbow colors. What color and shape fun might be your child’s play-of-the-day?

P.S. Add some color and shape to your day when you visit 123kindergarten.

Play Activities

Colors of Childhood: Button Color Sorting Activity

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Not every house will have a large collection of buttons like we do, but even a few will be fun for this button color sorting activity —on pipe cleaners. With only a couple of handfuls, Little Sister enjoyed playing with the buttons and making piles of “jewels”  although she  couldn’t decide if they were for fairies or pirates.

button color sortWith a few of the colors to match the pipe cleaners already in a separate bowl, it was much easier to match the color of the button to the color of the pipe cleaner. (Thank you, Diapers to Diplomas, for this great idea!) Most of the buttons had fairly large holes so they weren’t too hard for little hands to string. The buttons with the loop on the back were very easy to poke on and slide.

One button looked green beside the green pipe cleaner but yellow beside the yellow one. It was a good example of how some colors can be difficult to match. In the photo, it’s the small greeny-yellow dot on top of the white button in the middle.

button color sort activityThere were several buttons with dark blue edges and white in the middle. I asked Little Sister if they should go on the blue pipe cleaner or the white one. An object can often fit in more than one category at a time but this means choosing one part that fits and ignoring the parts that do not. She decided maybe they were “fwozen” like ice cubes.

Learning fun and play can come from such simple activities and materials. Pipe cleaners and buttons are easy to find and can be used over and over. Not only are kids practicing the skills of sorting and categorizing, but also making choices and using color words. Coordination and the small muscles in the hands and fingers are still developing at this age, so this color button sorting and sliding onto pipe cleaners was good fine motor exercise. There was lots of big physical movement too, getting down on the floor to pick up buttons that had fallen, and a bit of counting as well.

What a fun little play-of-the-day. Is this something your child might like?

Play Activities

Lego, Rubik’s Cube, & Other Toys Immortalize Colors

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Lego, Rubik’s Cube, and other toys immortalize colors of childhood. Can you recall quite vividly the color of Big Bird, Oscar, Elmo, and Barney? Quite often there are surveys on Facebook to find out people’s ages or decade they grew up. I’m sure there could be one to find out what toys people played with … Continue reading Lego, Rubik’s Cube, & Other Toys Immortalize Colors →

Play Activities

Colors of Childhood: Kids and Color Red Fun

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For some colorful plays-of-the-day today how about a whole bunch of activities for kids and color red fun? In the words of Kathy Stinson, Red is Best. There are so many different variations of each color. Just think of the color red. Rudolph’s nose is red; tomatoes, many apples, strawberries, blood, roses, maple leaves, and … Continue reading Colors of Childhood: Kids and Color Red Fun →