We reviewed the letter l this morning and did a lamp themed visual discrimination exercise. Visual discrimination is the ability to recognize similarities and differences between visual images. These exercises help strengthen children's attention to detail.
Materials Needed:
- blank lamp template
- markers
- scissors
1. Color (you or child) the lamp pictures to create matching pairs. Use patterns and varied colors. For older kids, make the differences between each pair less noticeable so that this activity is harder/ requires more attention to detail.
2. Cut out the lamps into little cards.
3. Spread the cards out on a flat surface and encourage your child to find the cards that are similar and group them into piles.
I wanted to set my little guy up for success from the beginning, so I didn't lay out all 12 cards at once (too visually distracting) and instead laid out one set of cards and then showed him one card at a time and had him match it to one on the table.
Once he showed me that he was easily capable of doing that, I spread all 12 cards out on the table and let him find the similar lamps and group them.
This was definitely trickier for him and if he wasn't concentrating he would just randomly pile cards together and think he'd done it correctly.
Other variations with cards
- group lamps by similar colors (ex. all lamps with blue on them)
- group lamps by differences (ex. lamps that have no pink)
- turn them over and play memory
- color lamps in solid color pairs, have kids work on just matching colors (younger kids)
Attention to detail is really important as kids are learning their alphabet letters (many of which are very similar) and learning to read words... so I love any activity that practices this skill.
As part of another language component to this activity we walked around our house observing our lamps and talking about their different characteristics. Some are short, others are tall and thin, some have darker lampshades, some are bright colored, some have curves, and some have flat sides. Some turn on with a switch on the wall, some have a knob that needs to be turned, etc. etc.
I'll post my lamp template online later today if anyone is interested in trying this activity.
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