matching games

Ds started a sensitive period for matching all the things all the time. It's amazing. I mentioned in a previous post I didn't really believe in matching games, they look so boring. I'm glad I gave it a try.

He found these tiles and put them like this before I even noticed. 

Here's what we do.


Matching 3d to 3d. 
I've got the mystery bag of shapes. He likes working with it but doesn't quite get the bag thing yet. But he likes to sort the shapes together. He also sorts his animals to match.

Matching of dinosaurs to a copy.
After a while I'll get him to trace to an outline,
following a similar pattern as with the geometric cabinet. 

Matching 3d to 2d.
I quite literally stuck his plastic animals under the photo copy machine. About 9 to 12 per sheet of animals in the same category. So I've got insects, fish, aquatic banale, etc. It's easy for him, but he does it again and again.
he also, spontaneously, started matching his plastic animals to pictures in books.

He's discovering his new animals here. I got a small version for midday of them. 

Matching size
Big cow goes with little cow, big fish with little fish, etc. I'm trying to teach him that all the big animals go on one side and the little on the other but he prefers to put them right next to each other or even on top of each other!
It's a fun game that we play together. He begs me to join in.
I think he's ready for understanding the pink tower too, now. I need to reintroduce it to him. The other day he begged for the knobless cylinders (which he's not supposed to have yet, but he likes things differently) and build a tower on size. He was nearly prefect!

Matching colour
I may have made a slight suggestion, but really, this game came up spontaneously. He's matching his cars to colour and making piles for each. Sometimes I'll sit with him and we make a rainbow, but he doesn't really get that yet.
He also matches things to the colour box we got and to anything, really.

Matching cars to colour.
When he's done he runs over and proudly shows me! 

Matching to real things
This is really cute. When we do the weather chart in the morning, he insists on going outside and holding the felt sun or cloud against the sky. He asks himself "do these match? " I laugh so much when he does this, again, his spontaneous idea.

Our felt weather station. It's so much fun to help him observe the weather.
I'm keen to add the moon phases, just haven't gotten around to it yet. 

These are great games for cementing the language into his little brain. It also helps him get a string sense of size and colours. I'm amazed at his keenness.  It's something I read about frequently in the books I'm reading. This spontaneous, effortless activity that looks like magic.