Animal Match

One of the many activities I brought along on vacation was Animal Match, a game that I printed from Home School Share. Home School Share's tagline sums the site's mission up beautifully- because many minds make light work.

Anyway, back to the game. I printed this game out knowing that it would be too easy for Ryan and a bit of a stretch for Ella. But it was a quick, easy, and most importantly NEW activity. To assemble the game I printed two copies of the game board. I cut one up and attached a magnet to the back of each piece. I use magnets frequently since I bought a huge lot of adhesive backed business card size magnets on ebay. I taped the game board to a cookie sheet (we have a set that are just for school), so that the magnets could keep the pieces in place on the grid.

Ella really enjoyed this game and it provided tons of practice with a variety of skills. Obviously, it's a great lesson in visual discrimination, and provides some fine motor practice. But, I was really impressed at the opportunities it provided for vocabulary building. Not only could we talk about the silly animal pictures, but I also talked a lot about where to look on the grid. "I see the butterfly at the top of the page" or " The squirrel is next to the duck".

I was amazed at how much easier this game became for Ella the very first time we played it. By the time Ryan realized that we were playing a game without him, Ella didn't really want or need his help blatant takeover!