Here’s an activity you can start practicing as early as 6 months. Expect this activity to take lots of practice before baby can properly match the shoes. Change this activity up by matching socks, mittens, hair bows, etc. Soon your baby can help you with the laundry- matching all those mismatched socks!
The Goals
Short Term Goal: Your child will be able to match two or more of the same object-shoes, socks, hair bows, mittens, animals, etc. This is a great cognitive development skill- matching, comparing, and problem solving.
Long Term Goal: This will help to start working on those self-help skills for the day when you can expect your little one to dress themselves or put their shoes away. Knowing which socks and shoes go together can help make this process easier. They can also help you with laundry. Getting children involved in clean up and small tasks around the house is not only helpful to you as a parent, but good for teaching them responsibility at an early age.
Here's how I led this activity
- In the beginning, I left Riley’s shoes out in her play room for about a week. I left them in a neat row matched with its pair so that she became accustomed to seeing her shoes matched.
- Each time we played the Shoe Match game, I would only grab two pairs of shoes. I would let her pick one shoe to hold.
- I would remove the second shoe from the other pair so that she only had two shoes to choose from in front of her.
- While Riley held onto the shoe she chose, I would show her the two shoe choices. I would tap each shoe against the shoe she was holding so that she could see the choices next to her shoe.
- I would ask her which one matches and wait for her to pick a shoe.
- Each time she chose the correct shoe, I would get very excited, and put the two matching shoes together and clap them together. I would talk about why they matched.
- Each time she chose the opposite shoe, I would show her the correct shoe and clap the correct shoes together. I would talk about why these two shoes matched, and the other shoe didn't.
- We would repeat this activity a few times each time we played. I would make sure the switch the position of the shoe choices, so she didn’t rely on picking the shoe on the right every time.
Note: Choose options that are very different in the beginning. We started with silver baby shoes and brown adult slippers. For more of a challenge, choose options that are more similar.
Benefits
- Problem solving skills: Riley is developing problem solving skills as she figures out which shoe matches the shoe she is holding.
- Comparing: Riley is beginning to compare her two options to find the shoe that is similar or the same as the shoe she is holding.
- Language development: Riley is being exposed to contextual vocabulary as I explain why the shoes match or don’t match.
- Fine motor skills: Riley is strengthening her fingers and hands as she picks up and holds each shoe.
