Shape Identification Games: Store-Bought and DIY

Let's Go Shopping (HABA)
[$25, Amazon.com]

Another very nice game from HABA, Let's Go Shopping combines a "deck" of cardstock cards that match up with gorgeous wooden food items, which must be identified by touch only by sticking your hand in a cloth grocery bag and feeling around. A great tactile and logic game for preschoolers.

As always with HABA games, this is gorgeously executed. You and/or your child may be tempted to play with this wooden food in a play kitchen, which would threaten to destroy your game.

What Is It?
[$8-$15, IKEA + craft store]

We play a couple of homemade versions of this game. We got a very nice cloth bag with a drawstring from the kids' section of IKEA last year and use it below to identify a bunch of small toys Z is very familiar with. Depending on your child's abilities, you can either select the toys with them at the outset of the game, or select them secretly yourself for an added challenge.

The homemade game allows for a greater variety of objects than one with all wood pieces, bringing in considerations like materials, texture, hardness or softness of the object, etc.

For a more "finished" version of the game suitable for gifts to other families or for certain parental temperaments, we like small wooden shapes. These can be purchased from craft stores in the woodworking craft section - you should find everything from spheres and cubes at various sizes to hemispheres and flat cut-out shapes like hearts and stars, for $1-$2 a bag. There are several levels of play:

• Early toddler: One set of objects in the bag, one out, child finds an object in the bag, pulls it out, and matches it to the one on the table.
• Intermediate toddler A: One set in, one out, child selects shape in bag, points to shape out of bag they think is a match, pulls it out and checks
• Intermediate toddler B: Two sets in, toddler uses both hands and tries to pull out a matching pair.
• Post-toddler early learner: One set in, child finds one in the bag and names the shape (sphere, hemisphere, etc.)