Pollman tips spatial skills.pdf

TIPS FOR SUPER SPATIAL SKILLS!

Easy, fun, and effective ways to boost spatial development in your pre-k or kindergarten students.

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  1. Let kids work with cubes or rectangular prisms to create a design on grid paper, such as a fence for a pet or a pen for a zoo animal.

  2. Encourage kids to find many shapes in the environment—the floor, the wall, the door, the ceiling, their clothing—and describe them in their own words.

  3. Demonstrate how a square can be turned into two triangles. Have children fold a square piece of paper in half and then ask what shape they created.

  4. Have kids develop simple sequential patterns, such as triangle, triangle, square (AAB) or triangle, square, square (ABB).

  5. Bring in buttons of different sizes and play a finding game. Ask: “Can you help the teddy bear find one large button and one small button?” Have kids discuss the relative size of the buttons using adjectives like large, big, small, and little.

  6. Ask children to sort 3D figures by size, number of sides, and weight, and describe the characteristics of each shape.

  7. Play Guess What the Shape Is at circle time—bring the shapes out of an apron and have children name them. (Mix it up: play this game with 3D and flat shapes.)

Adapted from Blocks and Beyond: Strengthening Early Math and Science Skills through Spatial Learning, by Mary Jo Pollman, Ph.D. Learn more and read a Q&A with the author at Brookes Publishing.