Explore How Things Fit Together
Have you ever watched your child put together a puzzle? Recognizing shapes and how they fit together is key in your child’s development of spatial reasoning skills. Your child probably uses these skills everyday, like when determining if a shoe goes on the left or right foot and then positions it accordingly. Your child can build on those skills in this activity while helping the Cat in the Hat rejoin his friends.
Materials
Directions
To get started, open up a box of pasta (ideally rigatoni, or long tubes). Talk with your child about the shapes in the pasta. Notice how some pieces are straight, while other pieces curve to the right or to the left. Ask your child to make a path with the pasta pieces by lining them up piece-by-piece. Your child can change the direction of the path by choosing pieces that curve left or right. While playing with the pieces and fitting them together, introduce to position vocabulary, like below, beside, under, and over.
Show your child the picture of the Cat in the Hat and Thing One and Thing Two. Explain that the Cat has become separated from his friends! Can your child help them get back together?
Use a marker or crayon to draw a wavy line that connects the Cat and the Things. The wavy line should be drawn so your child can easily follow it with pieces of pasta.
Ask your child to line up pieces of rigatoni pasta end-to-end so that the pasta follows the path you drew. Encourage your child to look carefully at the path to decide if a straight piece, a piece that curves right, or a piece that curves left is best.
When the pasta path is completed, encourage your child to pretend to be the Cat, walking toward the Things. Help your child describe the path the Cat walks down by saying things like, “Now I need to turn a little to the left because the path is curving!”
Math