I am continuing with the theme of Early Maths Activities for those of you with children starting school this September.  The EMA sorting objectives  ask your child to:

• classify objects according to one attribute, such as colour, shape, size or texture.

This Sid the Science Kid game focuses on sorting by colour. Sid the Science Kid will ask your child to find the stones and crystals that match a certain colour. Your child then drags and drops them into the appropriate boxes.

I think that this game might appeal to boys as it is not too cute or pink! The outdoor adventurer types might also like it ;).

I am not sure that it is a game that children will want to play over and over again. It is certainly a good match for the sorting objectives of the Irish maths curriculum and is worth a whirl this Summer.

Click here to play

Of course, sorting is something that you can do with your child in the absence of a computer. Why not download and print these sorting mats that I created last year?! There are lots of different types available to download for free.

Click here to download the set

 This one allows your child to sort objects into 4 different categories.

 Here are some additional suggestions for sorting categories:

• colour (red, yellow, green, blue)
• farm animals and wild animals
• big and small
• hard and soft
• things that are red and things that are not
• things I like, things Mom likes and things my sibling like

A “treasure box” is great for this. Just cover a shoe box with some brightly coloured paper and pop in small objects that you find lying around the house. You know what I mean ;).  Those little toys you get in kinder eggs, bits and pieces from Happy Meals, stray pieces of Lego, buttons, ribbon from presents and packages, bottle tops… The things that you never know quite what to do with…

Challenge your child to create categories based on what is inside the box. This is a great way to extend learning. Once your child understands the concept the sky is the limit and it would be restrictive to keep suggesting categories for them.

Have fun,

Miss Mernagh 🙂