As children grow up, they face more problems to solve, both at school and at home. Preschoolers must be engaged in activities and games that allow them to build cognition and solve problems by making use of memory, logic and creative thinking.
This preschool activity ‘Can you tell?’ is a memory game that requires children to listen carefully, recall information and solve a problem. The best part about the activity is that children may think of it as play while they’re engaged and in that process, they use and refine their skill of problem solving. So let’s begin and see what this activity is about!
Age Group
Children in the age group of 2 – 5 years
What do you need?
5-7 real & familiar objects or picture cards of familiar things
In case you are using picture cards, they can be 10cm x 10 cm pieces of paper. Draw/paste pictures of familiar things on each piece of paper such as a chair, a dog, a car, a tree, a bed, an apple, etc.
You also need a bowl to put all the picture cards or objects.
How to play?
- Sit together with your child, facing him at the same level.
- In a big bowl, keep all the real objects you chose or picture cards together.
- Now, one by one, take out each object or picture card and place it in front of the child.
- As you take out each object or card, describe it. For example, if it’s a dog’s picture, you may say, “It’s a dog. It’s an animal. It has 4 legs and a tail. The dog wiggles its tail when it’s happy and says bhow bhow.” OR if it’s the child’s toy – car, you may say “It’s a toy car. A car has 4 wheels and can go very fast. It has a horn which makes the sound peep peep.”
- As explained above, describe each of the objects or pictures to the child. You may also encourage the child to add to the description. For example, instead of telling the child what sound does a dog make, you can ask him to tell you.
- Next, take away the objects or pictures and put them back into the bowl.
- Then take out one object or picture at a time, and this time don’t show it to the child. You can ask the child to close the eyes and describe the features of the object in front of you. Encourage the child to guess and tell you what it is. For example, if you pull out a picture of the dog, you may say, “It’s an animal which has 4 legs and one tail. It wiggles its tail when it’s happy and says Bhow bhow. Can you tell me what it is?”
- When the child tells you what it is, clap and tell that he’s done well. If he is not able to guess, give more cues.
- Similarly, encourage the child to guess all the objects/pictures as you pull them out, one by one.
Follow Up
Switch turns with the child. Give the bowl to the child. Let him pull out the objects/pictures one by one and describe them to you.
This time use your memory and tell what it is!
Try a variation
After playing the game a number of times, the child will become familiar with its rules and the features of certain things. You can then play the game without using any objects or picture cards.
Just start describing the features of anything the child is familiar with and encourage the child to tell you what it is from his memory. This variation of the memory game can be played anywhere, anytime, and with as many people as you may like, such as while going to the market or to the school or while waiting for food on the dinner table.
We hope that you enjoyed playing this memory game with your preschooler.
How did you and your family do on this activity? Did your child enjoy it? What did she/he say?
Help us improve and tell us more about activities that parents may find helpful. We look forward to your suggestions!
This article is in a series of preschool activities that have been published by Team BestOfSchools for preschool-aged children that parents can easily perform at home.
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