Memory Game 2

After work, I picked up Tristan and brought him with me to pick up my scentsy stuff! My home smells so wonderful now! If you don't know what scentsy is check out this site. It is a wickless candle. The scents available are so yummy and pleasing. They sell it via hosting parties, like Pampered Chef, Creative Memories, Mary Kay, etc. I had never heard of it before, but it is such a great product and so much safer than burning candles in your home.

Anyway, after we came home, I made tacos for dinner (actually burritos because we don't like the hard taco shells - so we wrap our taco fixings in a soft tortilla). Tristan was so good - he ate up almost all of his burrito. Since he was so good, I asked him if he wanted to play a game. So, we sat on the floor and tried out the memory game. After setting it up, it occurred to me that I wasn't sure if my son knows the meaning of "same" and "different". So, I found three cards (two that matched and one that didn't match the other two). I put the two that matched out in front of him and asked him if they were the same or different. All he did was tell me what was on the cards. Darn. So, how do I teach my son "same" and "different"? I'm at a lost. Well, we proceeded to play anyway, but we changed it up based on his level of intelligence. This is how it went:

• I'd have Tristan flip over one card. He had to identify the card (he usually did this without me asking)
• Then, one by one, he'd have to flip the other cards until he found a match.
  
• Once he had a match, he put the two off to the side and repeated the procedure

Okay, so it wasn't as smooth as it sounds. He constantly forgot to turn a card back upside-down before looking at another, he kept mixing up the cards and not putting them back neatly (I know, I'm being picky). I only grabbed about 20 cards or so for him to try, which was plenty. He kept flipping over the same ones thinking somehow they had changed to be the card he needed. Tristan was excited every time he got a set of matching cards. He knows the concept of same and different, he just doesn't associate the terms "same" and "different" with the concept. Now, how do I get him to understand those words?

As for the memory portion of the game, there were only a couple of times in which he realized he had seen the card before. And a few of those times, he'd start flipping cards in the same vicinity of where he remember it had been. I think that if we play this a few times a week, he'll eventually get the concept down.

Anyway, here are some pictures of Tristan enjoying the game. Please excuse his pant-less self. He spilled on his pants and since it was so close to bedtime, I didn't bother putting him in new ones.

Elephants! What an exciting match for Tristan - he loves elephants.

Look a dinosaur! Two dinosaurs!

Our final match! Good job kiddo!