We Play: Link Up and Play With Us

Sorting shells

Our collection of shells has come back into vogue this past week, maybe as it was on the breakfast table and Immy has enjoyed looking at and sorting through the shells as I prepare breakfast. There has been lots of matching, grouping, and talking about shapes, sizes, colours and patterns. We keep our shells in a plastic sorting box and use the wooden tray as a defined space for playing with and talking about them. Collections such as shells or gemstones are a fantastic way of introducing young children to mathematical concepts like sorting, pairing, matching, grouping and size seriation.

Do you have a collection which your child likes to play with? What have you been playing this week?



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16 Comments

  1. J loves investigating and sorting his shells, too. I recently bought him a magnifying glass which he adores. I really like your tackle box for sorting. I think I will get one of those. We have lots of sorting collections; buttons, pom-poms, random tid-bits. I think I will get a container for each. Thanks.

  2. My kids collect buttons (4 & 5yrs). They love to get them out and look at them. We like to search for them at the op shops, their Grandmothers give them more. They’ve just worked out the concept of swapping them. They say it is so much fun!

  3. My girls currently collect leaves, which they sort and use in crafts and leave all over the house.

  4. We have been collecting buttons lately:)

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  6. My kids love to play with my collection of pencil sharpeners which I collected as a kid. They love to look at the variety, and they especially love the fact that I was a little kid – just like them! – when I played with them. A couple of my friends think I must have been a strange kid to collect sharpeners!

    1. Haha, that sounds familiar. I used to collect rubbers (erasers to Americans!)

  7. Minnie loves collecting & sorting shells & pebbles too. Although I struggle to store her latest collection of sticks!! ;o)

  8. Oooo we have made some sand-dough today to go with our continued beach theme. It would go perfectly with those pretty shells!
    Thanks for the link up.

  9. We collect rocks just about everywhere we go. The kids have a large rock collection, that I have yet to organize. I bought a few rock display cases, but didn’t know how to fill it correctly. But they pull them out to look and compare them. I hope to do a rock unit study soon and learn what the different rocks are and more. Then lable them and place into the display cases. I am learning along side the kids on this. We also collect sea shells when we visit the beach. We have had so much fun collecting our sea shells.

  10. My son has a drawer where he collects his treasured items – craft that he is particularly fond of and things I have made for him. It is not a very organised collection with a bit of everything, but it’s a start.

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