Explore Spatial Relationships

Help your youngster with important vocabulary building by leading him through some easy, fun activities that will help him understand basic spatial relationships and the words used to describe them. Your child will acquire new terminology to express direction and position without even realizing that he's learning! These activities that involve building, ordering, and rearranging materials will also develop his conceptual awareness and observational skills.

What You Need:

• Empty boxes and canisters

Easy at-home activities:

1. Gather materials around the house such as empty boxes, canisters, and jars. Have your child build structures and arrange objects as he pleases and then explain spatial relationships that are seen using terms such as those listed below.
2. Go on walks together and discuss things you and your child observe such as playgrounds and buildings and how they are put together. Are the windows below the roof? Are there plants inside the buildings? Is the basketball court next to the slide?
3. Encourage your child to assist you by putting away groceries and toys as well as rearranging furniture, while using prepositions and other vocabulary to describe how objects relate to each other in terms of position and order.

Vocabulary to use:

• Over
• Under
• Beneath
• Beside
• Near
• Against
• Along
• Around
• Next to
• Far from
• Inside
• Outside
• Underneath
• Top
• Bottom
• Middle

Books for children:

Inside, Outside, Upside Down by Stan and Jan Berenstain. Random House, 1968.

Over, Under, and Through and Other Spatial Concepts by Tana Hoban. Simon & Schuster, 1973.

Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins . Simon & Schuster, 1968.