By: Preschool Teachers
Education is a part of life. It should be fun and exciting especially for kids. Giving a simple activity with great benefits would be helpful to develop their understanding. One of the simple activities that have lots of benefits is matching and sorting activity or games. Matching and sorting are the simplest forms of finding patterns which is an important part of learning to organize information. This is important for math and reading later on. Moreover, Sorting and patterning skills involve understanding relationships among sets, how those sets are represented, and analyzing those sets. A child who has good sorting and patterning skills can:
- understand patterns, relations, and functions
- make matches
- identify sets
- sort and classify by various and multiple attributes
- compare sets for similarities and differences
- recognize and create patterns
Realizing that there are so many benefits of matching and sorting activity, here Metta school students’ class of Preschool 1 also implement the activity during the online school, the students got the materials taken from school. This activity takes part as a closing activity on Zoom meeting. Before the students play the activity, the teacher explains how to play and helps them if they are still confused to find the matching one. Happily, all the students are very excited and want to follow along.
Therefore, Matching and sorting activities help children to develop a range of thinking skills and build the foundations for later concepts. The visual memory and discrimination involved and the identification of patterns and relationships and similarity and difference help children to learn about early representation and problem-solving. Matching and sorting activities can also be good for developing fine motor skills.
https://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2012/09/easy-pattern-matching-for-preschoolers.html#:~:text=Matching%20is%20the%20simplest%20form,foam%20to%20make%20it%20harder.
https://thekindergartenconnection.com/secrets-developing-sorting-patterning-skills/
https://www2.oxfordshire.gov.uk/cms/sites/default/files/folders/documents/childreneducationandfamilies/informationforchildcareproviders/goodpractice/sentoolkit/Matchingandsorting.pdf
