Recommended Age: 4 to 5 years
Level of Parent Involvement: Medium, this exercise requires the adult to facilitate the activity by giving the child experience with comparative (long, longer, short, shorter) and superlative (long, longest, short, shortest) language using sticks in the outdoor environment as a resource
Prerequisites
- The child must be able to concentrate on a task for a period of time
- The child must be able to follow instructions
Materials
- A collection of around ten noticeably different sticks from the outdoor environment (if your backyard or outdoor space does not accommodate for this, go on a nature walk with your child to collect the sticks prior to completing this exercise)
- A basket or bag to collect the sticks in
- A table to work at or a nice space on the grass with a mat or picnic rug
Preparation
- None
Steps
- Invite the child letting them know that for this activity they will need to go outside
- Dress accordingly, if it is cold invite the child to get their jacket, if during summer the child may apply sunscreen and a hat
- Once outside go for a walk around the outdoor environment with the child collecting sticks of noticeably different lengths, 10 will be sufficient
- Once you and the child have collected the sticks go to the place where you are going to work, at an outdoor table or on a mat/picnic rug on the grass
- Sit down and invite the child to lay the sticks out in front of you
- Notice with the child they are all different lengths
- The child may put the sticks in order from longest to shortest
- Once the child has ordered the sticks, take two random sticks and say to the child “this is long, and this is longer” respectively
- Swap one of the sticks so that the dynamic changes, for example the one that was longer, now becomes long and the new stick is now longer
- Repeat a few times until the child is able to answer which stick is long and which stick is longer each time you change a stick
- Invite the child to keep exploring long and longer
Variations
- This exercise may also be done using superlative language, this time taking three sticks, saying to the child “these are all long, but this one is the longest”
- Swap the sticks so the dynamic changes and repeat a few times
Note
- The above exercises may be done as above on another day using the language short and shorter and short and shortest
