Ready for a game of matching pairs? Let’s play Bear Pairs.
Yep! This is a lot like its sister activity, Sticker Pairs – only this time played with bears.
See that? We can take ideas we have used in the past, switch up the supplies, and BOOM, use it again.
Isn’t that great? We don’t have time to work harder than it needs to be! I set this up in 98 seconds. Crazy fast, right?
RELATED: Find simple ideas like these on our activity cards!
This preschool math activity took a turn!
Big surprise, right? If you have been here a while, you know that we welcome this change of direction. I bet you remember something similar happening when we introduced Matching Mittens.
I invited my preschooler to find matching pairs, and he decided the bears needed to have a matching friend in each box.
Let’s take a closer look at this.
RELATED: Do you have counting bears? Take a look at these related ways to play!
The learning happens in the conversations.
When my preschooler adds more to the activity than intended, this is my invitation to listen in.
Switching from director to facilitator lends itself to so many more connections – and this is GOLD when working with young children.
It is incredible what we learn from our children when we back off.
RELATED: Have a toddler? Try matching the socks. This is both funny and helpful after pulling clothes from the dryer.
Here’s where my preschooler took this math activity
As my four-year-old plays, he talks about:
- making patterns
- size – big, medium, and small
- same
- different
- making a complete set
It is natural for him to talk about what he is doing. As the facilitator, I try to let him do more of the talking than me.
Instead, I offer thinking prompts such as:
- Did you notice the size of that red bear?
- I wonder how you can make a matching pair of your own?
- How can we make both of these boxes here look the same?
Best part? I am doing all of this as I sip on my tea. It is an intentional way to begin the day, and we call these Breakfast Invitations.
When his interest is coming to an end, I like to circle back to the main idea.
Here, we were practicing visual discrimination, which is a fancy way to say we were working on the ability to find differences in and ability to classify objects.
Here, we taking a closer look at size and color.
We end the Breakfast Invitation with a simple statement that brings us back.
Wow! You had a close eye this morning to find bears alike in size and color! Great thinking.
RELATED: Grasping these counting bears helps with FINE MOTOR PRACTICE.
Let’s get this preschool math activity set up!
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Place the paper table.
Add about six sets of boxes.
Place ONE bear in each set of boxes.
The objective: Find the matching bear and place it on the other side.
Ready? Let’s set up Bear Pairs!
