Ages
Time
Equipment
Benefits
5-10 minutes
Chalk or Tape
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Focus & Concentration
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Visual Figure Ground
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Shapes & Colors
3+
The Shape Dance
Sorting games help little ones pick things out of a crowd. This is the very beginnings of focus or what’s called “visual figure ground.”
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About This Game
How? Create shapes on the floor, driveway or sidewalk for them to explore with their whole body.
Why? Sorting familiar shapes and colors helps little ones develop their focus by shutting out visual information they don’t need. Using their whole body gives them more contact points to absorb the learning.
What you can do. As you play, don’t worry about how many they get right. Focus on how much they’re TRYING to focus. That’s the win in this game.
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For Beginners
For More Challenge
How to Play
For Beginners
Set Up. Draw a circle, square, triangle, and rain drop shape on the driveway or sidewalk with chalk. (You can also do this inside using tape on the floor).
Game Play. Draw a picture of the shapes on a piece of paper and put it on the ground next to the game. Point to the shapes and call out the names as they play. There are several ways to play...
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Step in the shapes.
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Walk around the lines of the shapes
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Use different body parts to touch and trace the shapes (elbows, knees, tip toes, fingers, etc.)
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For More Challenge
Set Up. Using four different colors, draw the shapes so they are intersecting with each other.
Game Play. Repeat the game exploring the colors and the shapes. This will be tricky because the intersecting lines and colors are distracting.
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And there's more...