How to Play a Matching Game With Toddlers

Matching games provide a fun way for toddlers to develop their memory and image recognition skills. According to Math and Reading Help For Kids, children learn better when stimulated by interaction with others. So play the matching game along with your toddler, rather than setting her up in front of an online game or the television.

Things You'll Need

• Printed images
• Card stock or cardboard
• Rubber cement
• Scissors

Instructions

Make and Play Matching Games

1. Make your own matching game by printing family photos or other interesting images you find online. Use rubber cement to mount the images on cardboard or card stock for more durability, and cut them out. Make sure all the cards are the same size and shape, and make two cards of each image. You can use images of farm animals or flowers, or use images of famous paintings to encourage your toddler's interest in art at an early age.

2. Shuffle the cards and deal them out face down on a clean surface or tabletop.

3. Take turns flipping over two cards at a time. If no match is made, flip the cards upside down again. The object of the game is to find pairs of like images; players must remember the locations of the cards they have already flipped to be able to make matches on subsequent turns.

4. Take an additional turn if you find a match. A player's turn can continue indefinitely if he continues to find matches. The game ends when all matches have been found; the player with the most matches in her pile wins.

References

• Math-and-reading-help-for-kids.org