Has your child taken an interest in sorting everything around her, or does she enjoy putting things “in order”? As your 18- to 24-month-old child uses her senses to learn about all the objects and places around her, she is developing more complex cognitive skills with her growing memory capacity, mental representation abilities, and improving visual skills. Specifically, she may be starting to take a greater interest in early math concepts, including Exploring Shapes and Sizes, Exploring Patterns, and Exploring Positional and Directional Play.

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As your toddler approaches two years old, her visual acuity (i.e. the ability to see an object and its fine details) is improving,¹ letting her become increasingly aware of the details she sees. She’s more capable of comparing and contrasting the relative size, shape, color, and other physical characteristics and functions of one object to one another.^1,2 The ability to identify and process these details is based not only on her visual acuity,⁴ but also her cognitive skills (mental representation and memory capacity).²

As she matures, her visual acuity will continue to develop so that she can better distinguish between spaces, lines, shapes, colors, sizes, positional and directional orientation (e.g. up and down), and other physical characteristics.³ With these skills, your child will someday learn to tell the difference between the the letters “d” and “b” in reading and writing, or between the colors of bright lime green and dark kelly green.

Now is a great time to encourage your child to sort items, which will build her categorization and pattern recognition skills. Because there are many ways to practice these skills, it is important to give her lots of opportunities to sort through objects by 1 or 2 attributes (e.g. color, size, or type) and play with things that have different qualities and functions! For example, she may start sorting her blocks by stacking them according to size or shape.⁴ 

During mealtime you might see her picking out her blueberries from a bowl of yogurt or rearranging her meal on her plate, putting her veggies on one side of the dish, while keeping her pasta and sauce on the other side.⁴ Wooden shape puzzles will help her practice her visual acuity too, so give her plenty to do! You’ll notice that she is better able to complete them now that she can tell where each piece goes based on its shape compared to the open spots, a sure sign of her improving skills.⁴

Seriation refers to your child’s ability to place objects in a specific order.⁵ By 18- to 24-months, her understanding of seriation will allow her to play with nesting cups and stacking rings with more purpose, understanding, and accuracy.^6,7 You can support this skill by keeping her supplied with a variety of things that stack and nest. In addition to cups and rings, blocks and nesting dolls are good choices. If you don’t have any of these toys, consider stacking plastic containers from your kitchen, selecting and matching your family socks by size or placing her stuffed animals, dolls, or books in order from shortest to tallest.

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Play Tips:

Do you want to know how you can support your child’s development of Exploring Patterns, Exploring Shapes and Sizes, and Exploring Positional and Directional Play skills at this age? It’s easy! Read on for some simple tips to incorporate into your daily play time together.

1. Build your child’s visual acuity. You can help boost your child’s ability to observe fine details and explore patterns by describing what she sees and does with objects and images.^3,8 Start off using simple words and then as her understanding increases use more specific descriptions, growing her vocabulary and refining her categorization skills. Ask her questions about what she sees around her or what she is doing as she sorts and plays. For instance, if she is sorting shape blocks by colors, say something like “You put all of the green shapes into this container and the blue shapes into that cup. Great job sorting them by the same color. Let’s look at the green shapes together. They are the same color, but have different shapes. That’s right, this is a circle, and that is a square!”
2. Play matching and sorting activities together.⁷ Develop your child’s ability to classify objects by playing sorting games and shape puzzles together. Let her play with everyday items that are graded in size, such as plastic containers, sponges, spoons, or shoes. Try asking her to match up her socks by color or design when you do laundry. Encourage her to help sort the loose change in your wallet by coin’s size and color (but be sure to keep her from swallowing the coins!). Lastly, make clean-up time a sorting activity by instructing her to put her toys away by use, size, or shape. And don’t forget to praise your child for her efforts by specifying what she has accomplished (e.g. “I love how you put all of the big blocks in the yellow tub!).
3. Identify patterns and relationships.⁷ By suggesting patterns or relationships between objects, you help your child build neural connections. Look for these patterns and relationships in the world around you, and compare and contrast objects, discussing their appearance and function. For example, take a look at two different flowers, and talk about what is similar or different about them. You could also talk about two different dogs you see at the park or the different houses on your street. Also, look for patterns in your environment. Maybe the brick wall of a house has an interesting pattern, or perhaps you can find a pattern in the posts of a fence, rows of vegetables in a field, or birds sitting on a power line. Point them out, and see if your child can find other patterns.
4. Build with blocks.^4,9 Block construction is one of the best ways to familiarize toddlers with pattern, size, sorting, and spatial awareness. Try combining several different sized, colored, or textured blocks to add interest to the construction. Ask your child how many of the tall skinny blocks you will need to make the stairs, or how you can arrange the big flat blocks to cover the entire floor of the building. Have her sort the blocks by size, color, or function to prepare the construction site. If you have access to hard hats or safety goggles, throw them in for added pretend play fun!

Developmental Milestones:

Has your baby achieved the following Exploring Patterns, Exploring Shapes and Sizes, and Exploring Positional and Directional Play developmental milestones yet? If yes, check off all the skill(s) she has already mastered to date using Playful Bee’s developmental milestones tracker. It’s absolutely FREE and easy to use, just click HERE!

• Begins to sort by color, shape, size, and texture.

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Sources:

¹Cohen, Leslie B. (2003). Commentary on Part 1: Unresolved Issues in Infant Categorization. In D.H. Rakison and L. M. Oakes (Eds.), Early Category and Concept Development: Making Sense of the Blooming, Buzzing Confusion (pp. 193-209). New York: Oxford University Press.

²Berk, Laura E. (2011). Infants, Children, and Adolescents (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, Inc.

³Gellens, Suzanne R. (2013). Building Brains. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf Press.

⁴Maryland State Department of Education (2010). Healthy Beginnings: Supporting Development and Learning from Birth through Three Years of Age.

⁵Norwood Public Schools (2004). Children’s Development of Mathematical Concepts: Ages 0-4. Norwood Public School District. Retrieved March 14, 2014, from http://www.norwood.k12.ma.us/curriculum/documents/ChildrensDevelopmentofMathConcepts-Ages0-4.pdf.

⁶Sugarman, Susan (1983). Children’s Early Thought: Developments in Classification.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

⁷Alaska Department of Education and Early Development and Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. (2007). State of Alaska Early Learning Guidelines: A Resource for Parents and Early Educators.

⁸Connecticut Department of Social Services. Connecticut’s Guidelines for the Development of Infant and Toddler Early Learning.

⁹Colker, Laura. Block Off Time for Learning. National Association for the Education of Young Children. Retrieved February 4, 2014, from http://www.naeyc.org/files/tyc/file/Block%20Off%20Time.pdf.

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Playful Bee

Education Team at Playful Bee

Playful Bee is an e-Preschool that delivers inquiry-based preschool learning from the classroom to your home. Our preschool curriculum was created by our talented team of rock star teachers. With years of hands-on preschool and Kindergarten teaching experience, they've developed a high-quality preschool experience that is convenient-to-use and easy-to-teach by you, grandparents, or your nanny at home.

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