🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• 🔢 Early Math Concepts — Sorting, counting, comparing sizes, and arranging objects by attribute builds the number sense, classification skills, and spatial reasoning that kindergarten mathematics directly builds on.
• 🖐️ Fine Motor Development — Manipulating small toy pieces, threading, sorting, stacking, and assembling develops fine motor precision and the hand strength that writing, drawing, and detailed tool use require.
• 🎯 Concentration & Persistence — Toys that require sustained engagement — a puzzle, a building project, a game — develop the focused attention and persistence that children need for classroom learning and complex tasks throughout life.
• 💬 Language & Storytelling — Toys that prompt storytelling — figurines, dollhouses, puppets, vehicles — develop narrative language: the ability to construct, sequence, and communicate a coherent story that underlies reading comprehension and writing.

You do not need to spend a lot of money to make a great educational toy for your preschooler. The matching game is a great way to teach your preschooler letters, numbers, colors, animals, or every day objects like cars and flowers. The best part is that you can actually make this educational game on your own.

For the actual card, you can buy a large poster board and cut it into small squares or you can use note cards. Then, you make matching pairs of cards by drawing shapes, numbers, or letters on them. Be sure to draw the shapes, numbers, or letters in the same color. For example, make all of your A’s red and all of your B’s blue and so on.  As you play the game, be sure to point out the color of the item to your preschooler. If you want to use animals or every day objects and you do not feel comfortable drawing them yourself, go to your computer’s clip art gallery, print off different animals or objects, and tape them onto the cards.

To play the game, shuffle the cards and lay them face down. You and your preschooler will take turns flipping over the cards trying to find matches. If you find a match, you get an extra turn. Whoever collects the most pairs wins the game. While playing, make sure that you point out the item on each card. If your preschooler flips over a card with a blue number 1 on it, tell your child that they found the blue number 1 and that they need to find the card with the other blue number 1 on it. A twist to the game would be if you wrote the number 1 on one card and then your preschooler would have to find the card with the word one spelled out. You could do the same thing with everyday objects and animals.

The matching game is a great opportunity for you to spend time with your preschooler and teach them at the same time. You will be surprised at how quickly your child will learn, and how much fun you will have playing with your preschooler.