Take a kit home and use the activity ideas below as inspiration for your playtime! Each week brings something new. Kits are available at the Youth Desk while supplies last.
Sock Sorting
Materials: Real socks or paper cutouts of socks with various colors and patterns, string, clothespins
*Come to the Youth Services Reference Desk to pick up a kit with materials (while supplies last).*
What: Toss the socks on the floor and mix them up so that they are separated from their pair. Time to match them! Once you find a pair, use the clothespins to hang them on the clothesline.
Why: Matching is an early math skill! When children start to discover how things are alike and different, they are sorting and classifying information. You can sort and pair socks by matching colors and patterns. You can also pair them by matching sizes, which brings in the concept of measurement-- more early math skills!
Extra ideas:
*Try using the different colors to make a pattern. For example, red, blue, red... what would come next? How about red, red, blue, red... what comes next? Lay the socks out on the floor (or hang them on the clothesline) to show the pattern.
*Take a look at these books that are all about noticing differences and finding patterns:
Exactly the Opposite by Tana Hoban
One of These is not like the Others by Barney Saltzburg
Duck, Duck, Goose by Wiley Blevins
*Act out this rhyme together:
Hickory, dickory, dock
Let’s put on our socks
We’ll walk around
Without a sound
When we put on our socks.
Hickory, dickory, dock
Let’s put on our socks
We’ll tiptoe around
And won’t be found
When we put on our socks.
Hickory, dickory, dock
Let’s put on our socks
We’ll slide around
The slippery ground
When we put on our socks.
Hickory, dickory, dock
Let’s put on our socks
We’ll dance around
And jump and bound
When we put on our socks.
I would love to see you busy playing! Please send a picture to clewis@egvpl.org if you would like to share.