Solving puzzles is simply the best way for children to learn how to solve problems in life. They are also a fun way to learn as compared to learning things the traditional way:
Suitable For:
This activity is designed for children between eighteen months and more than three years of age, as they can learn how to match shapes with one another by fitting them into the right patterns.
What You’ll Learn:
1. Pattern Recognition – As children participate in this activity, they will learn how to recognize patterns and fit objects into similarly patterned slots. This will enhance their pattern recognition skills.
2. Color Recognition – Children will learn how to visually discriminate between one color and another when they try to fit the cutout patterns prepared from the turtle’s shell into the concave slots that you have prepared on the turtle’s shell.
3. Fine Motor Skills – Whenever there is a need for hand-eye coordination, there comes the opportunity to develop fine motor skills. Since this wonderful activity involves the same, the fine motor skills of your children would also automatically develop, the more they participate in it.
4. Spatial Awareness – Engaging in the turtle shape puzzle game activity can enhance the visual-spatial and spatial reasoning skills of your kids as they learn to identify the many different shapes on the body of the turtle and their corresponding positions on the shell of the turtle.
5. Cognitive Development – Matching patterns according to their positions on the shell of the turtle through this activity can contribute to the holistic cognitive growth and development of your children in the long run.
Material Required:
1. Cardboard Base: Keep at least one big cardboard sheet ready for preparing the base for this activity.
2. Cutter: For cutting out concave holes into the shell of the turtle that represent the patterns on the same.
3. Multi-Colored Markers: For coloring the turtle and the patterns on its shell with different colors
The Procedure for Preparing:
1. Prepare the cardboard base –
Keep a cardboard sheet ready for use as a cardboard base for this game activity. Draw a turtle with a shell and use a different color marker to draw the patterns on its shell.
2. Cut out the parts of the turtle’s shell into different shapes –
Use a cutter to cut out the parts of the turtle’s shell from the cardboard base into many different shapes.
3. Ask your children to participate –
Encourage your children to match the differently shaped parts of the turtle’s shell with the different shapes represented on the turtle’s shell through concave slots by placing them inside these slots.
4. Review and Repeat –
Once done, review the activity and make your kids repeat it time and again till you are certain that they have mastered it. You can rest assured that your children will have acquired many useful skills for their future the moment they have finally completed this activity.
When children learn how to fit objects into slots that are similarly shaped, they will be able to learn pattern, design, and shape matching better. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Engaging in this wonderful activity for kids can help develop many skills in them that would be needed by them in the future a fun way.
Skilled in Mindfulness, Microsoft Word, Early Childhood Education, Classroom Management, and Communication. Strong professional with a Bachelor of Education - B.Ed. focused in Early Childhood Education and Teaching from London Metropolitan University.
