What Babies Can't Learn from Screens by Dr. Jill Uhlenberg

 

Cultural trends indicate that many adults are not only offering, but encouraging infants to interact with screens. This is despite the research that has shown the need for very young children to experience real people and objects (Francis & Whitely, 2015; Kuhl, 2010) in order to develop spatial reasoning. Spatial reasoning is an important part of mathematics that depends on children’s manipulation of real objects and experiences with real people. Here are some of the reasons for providing these experiences rather than resorting to screen time. Items 3-6 below are ideas from (Piaget and Inhelder (1967).

What babies can’t learn from screens:

1. Sensory development. How things (I am including people here!) taste, smell, feel. While screens can provide sound and colors, they limit the full sensory experiences involved with real objects.

2. Textures. Again these can be depicted visually but screens cannot engage children with differences in textures other than visually. 

3. Depth perception. Very young infants begin their understanding of space with the concepts of near and far. On a screen everything is the same distance from the infant—distant objects are smaller and nearby objects are larger, but this may just be size rather than closeness. 

4. Separation of objects. On a screen, everything is all part of one thing—the screen. Real objects are separate from each other. Infants learn that objects are separate by grasping and handling them.

5. Object permanence. This begins early in life through learning the continuity of objects. By turning objects in their hands, babies learn that the object continues on different sides. 

6. Object constancy. A solid object’s size and shape does not change. On a screen we can easily enlarge or reduce these. This is the beginning of concepts of conservation.

I admit to allowing my grandchildren use of tablets and other screens. However, my goal has been to ensure that more time is spent with real people and objects than screens. Francis and Whitely (2015) report that young children do not readily transfer knowledge about two-dimensional objects to three-dimensional objects. They need practical experiences examining all kinds of objects in order to develop a
strong understanding of spatial reasoning.

For ideas on supporting your infants and toddlers as they interact with objects, click on Contents and Containers, Block Play  Exploring Light and Exploring Sound.  

Francis, K., & Whitely, W. (2015). Interactions between three dimensions and two dimensions. In B. Davis et al., (Eds.), Spatial reasoning in the early years: Principles, assertions, and speculations (pp. 121-136). New York: Routledge.

Kuhl, P. (October, 2010). The linguistic genius of babies. Retrieved from Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of babies | TED Talk

Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1967). The child’s conception of space. New York, NY: Norton.

The Other Side of Math for Infants and Toddlers by Dr. Jill Uhlenberg

 

Many adults focus on numerals, counting objects, and helping young children learn the order of numbers. While these are important basics for mathematical learning, there is another side to math that is just as important; that is, learning about spatial relationships. Spatial understanding is a foundation for a substantial amount of math that we use as adults. This includes map-reading, measuring, classifying, recognizing and developing patterns, and more.

Infants and toddlers can develop spatial understanding through exploration of simple household items like plastic storage containers with lids, nesting cups and spoons, and muffin tins, along with objects to place inside these containers. Given plenty of time and adults who are willing to observe rather than direct the children’s experiences, young children can construct basic knowledge of spatial relationships. We collected 50 hours of video in order to examine how 12- to 36-month-olds used contents and containers and what they learned in the process. Adults can support this learning in the following ways:

    

Provide a variety of containers and objects for the children to explore. If possible, include a container that is large enough for the child to climb into. You will observe them placing containers on their heads, feet, and hands. Placing everything in a tub or drawer that is accessible will allow the children to engage freely, learning about the materials, then combining the materials in different ways to see what happens.

    

Spend time observing these explorations. You may want to name the materials and actions using spatial terms: you put the scarves in the bowl; I see you put the red ball beside the yellow ball; oh, the canister is on your head! You may be surprised at how the children use the materials. Over time, you will see growth in the children’s understanding of space and shapes. We also noticed that the children spent long amounts of time exploring, busting the myth of short attention spans typically attributed to toddlers.

  

 Allow the children to decide whether a problem has been solved rather than the adults expecting perfection. That is, we suggest accepting approximation. If a child is satisfied with the result of some experience, note this as a step in their development of spatial understanding, and watch for refinement in future explorations.

    

The favorite materials in our observations were plastic balls (ball pit type) of different sizes and colors. The children combined these balls with muffin tins (we had three sizes from mini-muffin to large muffin sizes). Using these materials, very young children began by testing whether one ball would fit in each of the 12 cups of the muffin tin. As adults we know these sizes are constant, but at 12 months of age, this is new knowledge. Other spatial understandings/math learning constructed with muffin tins and balls included these examples:

• One-to-one correspondence—one ball fits in one cup;

• Estimating space—using the medium ball in the medium-sized muffin tin; noticing which balls fit and which did not; pouring a bowl full of balls into a too-small canister; trying to place a lid on a too-full container;

• Classification—sorting balls by color or size; older preschoolers may use two characteristics, but infants and toddlers can generally only sort on one attribute;

• Patterns—placing balls in the muffin cups in a particular order (color, size, selected cup, etc.) that is repeated;

• Distribution—performing the same act on the same materials repeatedly, like placing the same ball in each of the muffin cups one by one; this mathematical process shows up later when adults are calculating equations.

    

The more experiences, the more advanced the children’s use of materials became. Eventually they began
combining materials in creative ways by constructing towers of bowls, canisters, nesting containers, and other objects. These explorations lead logically into the use of blocks, another strong component of spatial understanding. When you recognize and celebrate infants’ and toddlers’ bent for objects and containers, you are supporting their beginning spatial understanding. You will be surprised at the wealth of knowledge they construct over their first three years.

Toddlers and STEM Experiences: Adults as Learners

The struggle to find out the material world through science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) begins at birth. Lucky are the infants and toddlers who have observant, caring adults who support STEM learning from the start. 

This is the last in a series of four blog posts written by Dr. Jill Uhlenberg who describes four types of effort adults can employ to nurture STEM from the beginning. 

Toddlers and STEM Experiences: Adults as Learners

Dr. Jill Uhlenberg

The fourth kind of effort in supporting STEM with Toddlers is the adult's role as a learner. Most of us do not know all there is to know about STEM areas, so we are forever learning more about science,

technology, engineering and mathematics. Many toddler teachers are very unsure of their ability to offer technology and engineering experiences to their children. If we accept that technology is NOT limited to screen time, this becomes much easier to understand. Technology is the tools we use to complete a task or solve a problem. The paper taped to the classroom table in my first blog entry is technology - the teacher solved the problem of paint dripping down the classroom easels by providing a horizontal surface for the children to paint. The sippy cups I wrote about in the second blog entry about curriculum development also would be considered technology. And engineering is the process we use to address those problems that we find and solve.

Even as we learn more about STEM, toddler teachers must also learn more about the children in their care. Each of the individuals has different interests, families, backgrounds, favorite toys or foods, and experiences. The more we learn about each one, the better we can be at teaching. So we must learn to view toddlers as learners who need freedoms, good curriculum, routine and variety, and a teacher who wants to know them as an individual.

Although there are many more kinds of effort toddler teachers must expend each day, from hugs, supporting toilet learning, supporting parents, documenting, clean-up, and more, engaging in these four kinds of effort produce high quality experiences for children. All four roles—liberator, curriculum developer, chief historian, and learner—interact to support toddlers in their exploration of STEM experiences.  

[For a fuller explanation, see Uhlenberg, J. (2016). The four roles of a master toddler teacher. Early Education and Development, 27(2), 240-258. DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2016.1088313]

Toddlers and STEM Experiences: Adults as Chief Historians

 

The struggle to find out the material world through science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) begins at birth. Lucky are the infants and toddlers who have observant, caring adults who support STEM learning from the start. 

This is the third in a series of four blog posts written by Dr. Jill Uhlenberg who will describe four types of effort adults can employ to nurture STEM from the beginning. 

Toddlers and STEM Experiences: Adults as Chief Historians

Dr. Jill Uhlenberg

STEM with toddlers that leads to successful experiences is supported by a teacher who is the chief historian. Toddlers have not lived long enough to have experienced much of history. The teacher becomes the lead in this process, which involves repetition and variety.

Toddlers need routines to provide them stability in their environment. They want to know what to expect in the daily schedule so that the routines of the day give them a framework for their lives. Breakfast is followed by learning center time. Then comes outdoor play, lunch time, stories, and naps.

Within those regular daily events, we can provide variety, such as the ideas I wrote about for curriculum development. Providing water play as a daily offering at a center time builds a history of opportunity for STEM exploration. When the toddlers seem less interested in the water table, adding some new containers will re-strengthen that interest and provide new ways to engage with the water and other materials. In my toddler classroom, the water table was available every day of the year because it was so interesting to the children.

Adults can remind the toddlers of previous actions, also building history. “Remember when we found the caterpillar on the playground? Let’s look at the caterpillar book again.” Building routines and providing variety will support curriculum development as well as supporting children’s ability to make choices and share power in the classroom.

[For a fuller explanation, see Uhlenberg, J. (2016). The four roles of a master toddler teacher. Early Education and Development, 27(2), 240-258. DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2016.1088313]

Toddlers and STEM Experiences: Adults as Curriculum Organizers

 

Eleanor Duckworth once said, “The essence of science is the struggle to find out about the material world.” She went on to say, “This struggle entails both the ability to solve problems which are already articulated and the ability to find problems not yet articulated." 

The struggle to find out the material world through science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) begins at birth. Lucky are the infants and toddlers who have observant, caring adults who support STEM learning from the start. 

This is the second in a series of four blog posts written by Dr. Jill Uhlenberg who will describe four types of effort adults can employ to nurture STEM from the beginning. 

Toddlers and STEM Experiences: Adults as Curriculum Organizers

Dr. Jill Uhlenberg

In the previous post, we examined the role of adults as liberators. The second kind of effort needed is for adults to be the curriculum organizers. People who work with toddlers often seek ideas for curriculum in places that are not connected to toddler experiences. That is, curriculum becomes an external device inserted into the day to pass the time. When toddlers are not interested in these kinds of external experiences, or when limits are tight because adults are directing how the experiences progress, that curriculum often fails.  That is when we hear adults bemoan the short attention span of toddlers or that they are experiencing the “terrible twos” or they are making a mess. 

Curriculum that grows out of toddlers’ everyday experiences with different materials provides opportunities for engagement and lasting interest. My example of Lacey and her painting is one example. Lacey’s teacher shared another experience about the toddlers in her group. Oscar was enjoying his crackers and drink at snack time when his sippy cup tipped over. He watched the water drip out of the lid slowly, then he picked up the cup upside down and continued to watch the water drips fall onto the table. Again, this toddler teacher could have told him to stop, taken his cup away, or any of several other limitations. Instead, she gathered up extra sippy cups and the next day placed them in the water table so that Oscar and all the children could explore how the water acted in sippy cups. The toddlers spent the entire week examining the cups, filling and emptying the cups repeatedly until they were satisfied.

Another example is the Contents and Containers experience developed by Regents’ Center staff. These experiences utilize common materials found in a kitchen (containers) and objects to place inside them. Toddlers love to place objects inside any container and carry them around. Allowing them to explore multiple kinds of containers and contents leads to extended play and investigations of what fits or doesn’t, how materials nest or don’t, and many other spatial relationships. 

For toddler teachers who don’t know what to provide for their groups to experience STEM, I suggest beginning with what the toddlers are already doing. Much of what toddlers are engaged in is essentially STEM related. Observe them and explore their perceptions of the world around them rather than providing adult-initiated and -directed experiences that may only demonstrate to toddlers that they need a liberator. Dr. Rheta DeVries noted, “If there is nothing for the children to figure out, then it may not be worthy of their time.”

[For a fuller explanation, see Uhlenberg, J. (2016). The four roles of a master toddler teacher. Early Education and Development, 27(2), 240-258. DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2016.1088313]

[Contents and Containers: Exploring Space with Infants and Toddlers]

[More suggestions for infant toddler STEM curriculum ]

Toddlers and STEM Experiences: Adults as Liberators

Eleanor Duckworth once said, “The essence of science is the struggle to find out about the material world.” She went on to say, “This struggle entails both the ability to solve problems which are already articulated and the ability to find problems not yet articulated." 

The struggle to find out the material world through science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) begins at birth. Lucky are the infants and toddlers who have observant, caring adults who support STEM learning from the start. 

This is the first in a series of four blog posts written by Dr. Jill Uhlenberg who will describe four types of effort adults can employ to nurture STEM from the beginning. 

Toddlers and STEM Experiences: Adults as Liberators

Dr. Jill Uhlenberg

STEM with Toddlers takes effort from the adults around them. That effort can be so rewarding for both the children and the adults. For me, there are four different kinds of effort needed for adults to successfully support these young children in their learning. These are being a liberator, a curriculum developer, a chief historian, and a learner.

The first and probably most difficult effort for many adults is to be a liberator. Liberating a toddler means offering to share the power that adults hold just by being bigger, older, and more experienced. Sharing power is a risk that many adults just cannot take. It makes life messier. It makes young children more independent. It makes the toddlers question rules and limits. But in the long run, it makes them excited learners who want to find problems and solve them.

Lacey is two and loves to paint. Her teacher covered an entire tabletop with paper taped down and handed her a cup of paint and a brush. Lacey began to paint. She focused on one corner of the table to the extent that she painted right through the paper, so that she was eventually painting the tabletop. Still she continued to paint only in that one place on the paper. Her teacher could have told her to stop, redirected her to paint other places on the paper, or removed her entirely from the activity.

The teacher knew that the paper would eventually get wet and dissolve. She knew that there would be a mess to clean up. She knew because she had more experience than Lacey. Instead of stopping Lacey’s experiment, her teacher allowed this exploration of the paint and paper to happen until Lacey was satisfied.

 

Think about all the STEM Lacey was experiencing. She was learning about wet and dry materials and how they interact (science). She was exploring how much paint was needed to make the hole in the paper and how big the hole would get (mathematics). She discovered that the paint brush could carry paint (engineering) as a tool (technology) in her painting efforts. She also was learning that paper was not as long-lasting tool as the table was (technology). Lacey was learning concepts that her teacher already knew as an adult. 

The best toddler teachers are those who embrace who toddlers are and what they do. Rather than setting limits and struggling to control toddlers throughout the day, allowing them opportunities to explore and gain experiences will bring joy and excitement to their learning. That can happen by sharing the power and by working at the second kind of effort needed: curriculum organizer.

[For a fuller explanation, see Uhlenberg, J. (2016). The four roles of a master toddler teacher. Early Education and Development, 27(2), 240-258. DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2016.1088313]

[Ideas for infant toddler STEM curriculum can be found at https://regentsctr.uni.edu/regents-center/stem-experiences-classrooms]

Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary

 

With many children beginning their school year online, parents and teachers are challenged to make digital learning meaningful. A way to more deeply engage children in learning may lie in moving away from viewing a digital device to learn and moving towards first using a digital device as a tool to document the extraordinary in the ordinary. In the process, you may find yourselves beginning to engage with the world as scientists just outside your own front door.  

In the last blog post, I shared how my preservice teaching students were engaging in inquiry by documenting the development of their own monarch caterpillars. They were charged with exploring the outdoors to collect fresh milkweed leaves to keep it well-fed. This past week, I've reveled in the excited texts and emails from these students sharing how their interest and inquiry has expanded into the spaces and lives of others where they live. Fascinated by the tiny caterpillars, they were given names by roommates and displayed in a protective place of prominence. One student who had gone home shared that his mom became so invested, she had ordered a butterfly habitat from Amazon and was eagerly awaiting its delivery. Over the weekend, a student asked her family help her search for milkweed and discovered they had one in their front garden. Upon closer look, they found three large caterpillars munching on the leaves. They also noticed a cocoon on a post with a small hole in it. Curiosity drove them to gently dissect the abandoned cocoon.  Inside they found the casing of the caterpillar that had morphed into the moth that flew away. She wrote about how "cool" it was to find all sorts of connections and how this interest in the ordinary got her family invested in learning about the extraordinary monarch caterpillars. "They have now been adopted into the family as I have already received an update from my dad today!" She included this photo of one of the adoptees. 

Now is an ideal time to take a walk outdoors for more than exercise for you and your child. Find a spot to sit, relax, and take in your surroundings. This summer's fourth generation of monarch butterflies are in abundance, preparing to make their trip to Mexico at five miles per hour and may lead you to intriguing phenomena that are often overlooked. If you don't know what plants to look for to find caterpillars, google "milkweed in Iowa" and you will find photos of at least nine different species. You will have the most luck finding them on Swamp Milkweed or the Common Milkweed. Once you find the plant, look carefully under the leaves for caterpillars as well as on the top. When you find one, spend time just watching it, closely observing with your child. What do you notice about its colors? How can you tell the head from the tail? How does it hang onto the leaf? What do the feet look like? How many does it have? Photograph it from different angles. Zoom in on different parts. Video record it eating. Once you physically engage in the phenomenon of the living caterpillar and document it with a digital device, then use a digital device to learn more. Linda Fitzgerald, UNI Professor Emerita and advisor to the Iowa Regents' Center suggests exploring the website, Monarch Joint Venture. In addition to information about the monarch, one can find opportunities to engage in community science or citizen science, enabling you and your child to be scientists, just outside your front door.  

Nurturing Curiosity

 On our website homepage, you will find a photo of Judith Finkelstein, the first Director of the Iowa Regents' Center for Early Developmental Education standing in the doorway of our Integrative Classroom Studio. The purpose of this classroom is defined by the phrase - This is where educators discover how to be the learner they want their students to be. This starts by engaging in metacognition as they work with materials in various experiences, thinking about what stimulates their own curiosity and how they might nurture their students' curiosity about what is in the world and how it works with similar materials and experiences. The Covid 19 crisis is making this difficult and we are thinking outside the box to continue to support preservice and inservice early childhood educators.

I am teaching a section of UNI's course, Teaching Elementary School Science. With the help of Iowa State Extension, we are engaging UNI preservice teachers in a full immersion experience of documenting the life cycle of the Monarch Butterfly. In the photo, you see a newly hatched caterpillar being teased into small agar plates supplied by Iowa State Extension. Each student will care for a caterpillar in their own living space, documenting its changes daily in their science journal. A caterpillar and materials are delivered to the doors of students in quarantine, enabling them to continue to participate in the experience and stay connected with their classmates in discussions on inquiry learning over Zoom. Even during a pandemic, they discover how to be the learner they want their students to be. 

Addition without Worksheets or Flashcards: POINT

If you have a child at home practicing addition, Point is a great game to print off and play with them. It is much more engaging than flashcards or worksheets, and involves much more mathematical reasoning.

This game has two types of cards - numbered dot cards and tile cards. The dot cards are dealt out to all of the players and the tile cards are placed face down in the middle with the first one turned up. The tile card shown has 9 gold bars. Players have the opportunity to use 2 or more numbers to total 9. The player must prove to the other players their cards add up to the tile card number before getting rid of their cards. The winner is the player who gets rid of all their cards first.

Tile Card

As you play with your children, watch to learn how they count and add. Ask them to explain how their combination adds up to the tile card's number by asking, "How do you know that adds up to 9?" Do they always count one at a time? Do they count on from a larger number (Example - the tile card on the right has 9 gold bars. Do they start with 5 and count on 6, 7, 8, 9? Or do they start with 1 and count each bar up to 9? Be prepared to explain your combination cards as well!

As you play more games, you may find them figuring out the strategy of saving their small cards (1s and 2s) to make larger numbers to be able to get rid of their cards more quickly.

Keep a tally of who wins each hand and add again to figure out  who won the most.

Click here for a PDF to print all the game cards. We include a backing for the dot cards and tile cards, but you can eliminate those to save ink. Important: When you are ready to cut apart the tile cards, cut on the red lines.

Cooking breakfast in a Pandemic

Yesterday, I ran across a Facebook live video of April VanSickle Graff, someone I knew as a creative young learner when I taught first grade in Laurens, Iowa. April is now a nutritionist for Hy-Vee in Mankato, Minnesota and posted a video of cooking French Toast in a Mug with her daughter in her role as a nutritionist. Engaging young learners in cooking experiences is an integrative STEM experience.

Food assembly has long been a part of early childhood curriculum. There are many examples of how mathematics is embedded in preparation of ants on a log, or sandwiches. What is often overlooked is the STEM involved with actual cooking experiences.

As children make their own servings of pudding, pancakes, muffins, quesadillas, eggs, or in this case - French toast in a mug, they engage in vocabulary that often has multiple meanings. In cooking we whip, beat, sift, dice…all words that have different meanings in different contexts.

There is mathematical thinking such as of more and less, shorter and longer in terms of time, number of scoops or spoonful’s and experiences connecting children to the concepts of volume and fractions.

Cooking experiences can introduce cultural dishes previously unknown to children, or regularly enjoyed.

Finally, cooking experiences immerse children in observations about properties of materials or ingredients, and how those properties may change when heat or cooling is applied to a mixture, and if those changes are reversible.

French Toast in a Mug is a recipe adapted from the August 2019 issue of Hy-Vee’s Seasons Magazine. We adapted the recipe calling the measurement of Tablespoon a “big spoon”, the ½ teaspoon a “little spoon”, and the ¼ teaspoon a “tiny spoon.” Seriation of sizes matches the development of math with preschoolers and kindergarten. When children are in first, second, or third grade, they can begin to make sense of standard units of measurement.

Parents staying at home with their prek-grade 2 children can turn breakfast into meaningful learning experiences when they cook with them. Visit the link below to find the recipe to French Toast in a Mug along with other recipes available to download on our website.
https://regentsctr.uni.edu/ceestem/recipes/french-toast-mug

The video of April and her daughter can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/HilltopHV/videos/807652576391609/

I made myself a mug  this morning. Tasty!

Salute!

Salute is a game for three: 2 players  and an announcer. It is a great game for children from grade 1 to grade 3. Playing the game develops fluency in addition and subtraction using numbers 1-10. The link to this game includes cards and backing for cards, but this game can be played using a regular deck of cards if you remove all the face cards. 

To play, shuffle the cards and place them face down. The 2 players each draw a card and without looking at it, hold it to their forehead so the other player can see the card but they cannot. The announcer looks at the cards on the forehead of the two players and announces the total. The players can see the addend their opponent holds, and requires them to find the missing addend. This form of questioning asks the players to consider the part-whole relationships in numbers. Although the announcer does not hold a card, he or she must initially add the numbers and give the players their sum. The announcer must also check the other student's answers, and is therefore actively involved in computations. 

Older children can use the cards to practice multiplication and division. The announcer would multiply the two cards, and the other two would have to divide the answer by the number they see on their opponent's card. 

You can find the game at this link: https://regentsctr.uni.edu/games/games-for-1st-grade/salute-1stgrade

Tapatan

This is a game for two that is both simple and complex. It challenges the players to think spatially, consider the perspective of the other player, and use logic. The object of the game is to get three in a row. 

To play, each player takes 3 markers of the same color. In the photo on the right, one player has 3 blue markers and the other player has 3 red markers.

Players decide who goes first.

Players take turn placing one of their markers on an empty blue circle or dot on the board.  

Once all 6 markers are placed on the board, players take turns sliding one of their markers along any line to a neighboring circle. Players must move a marker on their turn.

Markers cannot pass a circle/dot on the way to another circle/dot. Markers cannot jump over another marker, and 2 markers cannot be on the same circle/dot.

Players continue taking turns until one player gets three markers in a straight line. This player is the winner.

Keeping score in this game is a good time to introduce tallies, and then counting by fives. 

It is easy to make this game without downloading and printing it out. Simply draw the board on a piece of paper and use 3 pennies and 3 nickels as markers. 

Here is the link to download and print the game: https://regentsctr.uni.edu/ceestem/games/tapatan-1st-grade

Memory (Home-Made Version)

The previous post, Memory, explains the mathematical benefits of playing the game. This post shows how one can make a home-made version. Making a home-made version can be a rich, integrative experience with your children as it involves reading, writing, and fine motor skills.

Materials needed: images, scissors, glue or tape, material for making cards

Step One:

Finding Images: search your recycling or mail for catalogs, magazines, or advertising flyers with photos. Challenge your child to find pairs of items that can match such as two lawn mowers, bicycles, etc. Hand them a pair of scissors and ask them to cut them out.











After your child cuts the images out, trim the excess around them. As you trim, talk with your child about the name of each item. What an item is called may be different depending upon where you live. For example, are they a pair of pants or a pair of slacks?

Step Two:

Making the cards: Next look for a material to use to make the cards. If you have an old deck of cards with some missing cards, this will be perfect! Block out the existing image with masking tape to provide a space for your images. Other materials that can be used are old Christmas cards, envelopes, or cereal boxes. For the rest of this post, we will be using a cereal box. 







Regardless of what you use to make the cards, work to make them uniform in size. This is a good opportunity to model using a ruler and standard units of measurement. Think aloud, modeling what you are thinking as you use the ruler. I want to make them 2 1/2 inches wide and 3 1/2 inches wide...

Step Three: 

Attaching Images to Cards: Use tape or glue to put the images on the cards. If you are lucky to have clear shipping tape in the house, this is perfect. 

You can easily address literacy learning by asking your child to help you label the pictures using a sharpie. 

What sound do we make at the beginning when we say shirt or shoes? Help me remember what two letters make the /sh/ sound. 

Step Four:

Checking the Pairs: Ask your child to help you check to make sure you have a pair of each object. 

If you have labeled your cards with a sharpie, point to the words and do a bit of reading as you check. 

Remind me what this says. Hat? What sound do you hear at the end of hat? What letter makes that sound?

Step Five: 

Begin to Play: Mix up the cards and lay them out in an array. If you are working with an older child, you can model talking about rows and columns if you want. 

I can make two rows with six cards in each row. But that leaves me with only four at the bottom. I wonder what would happen if we put seven cards in a row? Eight? 

If you have a very young child, start by only putting 4 pairs out at first. As they gain confidence, add more pairs to the deck to challenge them. 

Begin to play as directed in the previous post. You may think that your child will recognize the pairs by the print of the cereal box. If they do, they have an excellent memory! 

Tomorrow's post: Tapatan!

Memory

This is a very simple game that most preschoolers can play successfully. Kindergarten, first, and second graders enjoy it as well. The mathematical concepts that can be addressed: the concept of pairs, counting, counting in twos, more and less.

This game can be played with any matching cards. Many different sets of matching cards are available commercially with various pictures, such as farm animals, insects, birds, household items, paintings by famous artists, etc. Standard playing cards or number cards can also be used. The number of pairs used to play the game should remain low (around 6 pairs) for the youngest players. With older children, more pairs can be used.

When children first play this game, they tend to choose cards at random; they often do not replace cards in the same place from which the cards were taken; and many times they do not pay attention to which cards other players turn over. As they become more experienced at playing this game, they begin to figure out that watching the other players turn over cards will give them useful information.

An interesting way that young children often play Memory is that when children see a player turn over a card and they think they know where its match is, when it is their turn they will often turn over the card that was just turned over first, and then try to find its match. Adults recognize that if they are not positive about where a card is placed, they should turn over the card that they are not sure about first, so that if they are wrong, they have not wasted a turn.

Young children often play Memory cooperatively. That is, when a player turns over a card and another player knows where its match is, that child will often tell the player which card to turn over in order to make a match. Here is a video of 4-year-olds playing the game: https://regentsctr.uni.edu/sites/default/files/videos/original/memory_0.mp4

The versions of Memory sold in most stores are made by Hasbro. You may already have this game. If not, you can download and print these files for use at home: 

Memory cards: https://regentsctr.uni.edu/sites/default/files/games/Games/Memory/Memory_Cards.pdf

Memory game board: https://regentsctr.uni.edu/sites/default/files/games/Games/Memory/Memory_Grid.pdf

Memory rules: https://regentsctr.uni.edu/sites/default/files/games/Games/Memory/Memory_Rules.pdf

If you do not have a printer or enough ink at home, check the next post for how to make a home-made memory game. 

Welcome to the Iowa Regents' Center for Early Developmental Education blog.

Welcome to the blog for the Iowa Regents' Center for Early Developmental Education. Our center has been designing, implementing, and researching inclusive STEM materials and curriculum for early learners for more than 20 years. This blog serves to connect parents and teachers of children ages 0 to 8 with STEM experiences that can be done at home while we all deal with Covid 19.

Please click on the menu on the right to view our posts.