I recently found these animal flashcards and knew they would be a hit because of their real photographs📸. I sorted through some of our animal magnets and found a few that matched the animals on the flashcards. If you don't have animal magnets or flashcards, use what you do have! Stuffed animals, figurines, draw pictures, puzzel pieces, print pictures from online, cut photo from a magazine. The goal is to encourage your child to match, whether by pointing or placing the two similar item together.

➡ Matching involves one-to-one correspondence and is a great way to build some early math skills. Navish and I started out slowly, I showed him three flashcards, grabbed an animal magnet that matched one of the cards and asked, "Where's the____?" At first,Navish just stuck to pointing to its match while I placed it on the card. I then began handing the magnet to navish for him to match himself and asked him the same question. This id called scaffolding your child's learning-think like a ladder. Of course, we practiced saying the animal names, sounds and did some role playing. Have you ever seen a toddler pretend to be a gorilla? That's prime entertainment😅!

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P.S. Don't forget to supervise and guide your child while they explore!