Here’s a beautiful weather matching game for toddlers and preschoolers with a cute patchwork design!
This simple game will give you a great opportunity to teach your little ones all about the different weather we can get here on Earth – from the beautiful rainbows to thunder and lightning (flashing and frightening!). It’s also a great way to help your children develop their fine motor skills and improve their visual discrimination skills.
This weather matching game is a simple one where your children will need to match a weather tile to the correct one on the weather mat. But your children will need to have an eye for detail as some of the colors and shapes can be pretty similar.
Other Toddler and Preschool Matching Games
- Spring Flower Matching Game for Toddlers
- Dinosaur Matching Game For Toddlers
- Party Animal Matching Game
- Sea Animal Matching Game
- Dinosaur Shadow Matching Game
What Skills Can Your Little Ones Learn?
For a simple game, there’s actually quite a lot of skills that can be learnt and developed:
- Visual Discrimination skills– the ability to notice differences between objects and symbols. Your children will have to look closely at the shapes and patterns to make the correct pairings – which will help them to develop important early math skills.
- Counting Skills – They can also practice counting if you encourage them to count all the weather tiles, or just the tiles which have blue on them, or only the ones with clouds. How many have clouds and have blue things? If you play the memory game I mention below, there’s even more chances to get some counting practice in!
- Fine Motor Skills – It can also help with fine motor skills, as they’ll need to be able to grasp the pieces, and hand-eye coordination and hand control as they ensure they are placing them in the correct spot.
- Speech and language skills – If you make sure you are getting them to talk about what they can see when they are matching. It’s a good chance to get them to describe what they can see. What shapes can you see? Do you know anything else that’s that shape?
- Weather Knowledge – It’s also a great chance to teach them about all the types of weather we can get.
- If they find it tricky at first, it may also help them learn patience and persistence – great life skills.
Who’d have thought such a simple game can help your children develop so many skills – that’s the power of play!
(DISCLAIMER It can also be a fun way to keep them entertained when you need to get the dinner prepared or do any of the hundreds of jobs that just seem to be constantly piling up.)
How To Prepare The Game
Firstly, download the weather matching game it by clicking on the download box at the bottom of this page.
Then, print it out on to paper or card.
Next, cut the pieces out carefully. I’d advise laminating them after as I’m sure you’ll want to use them again.
Now you’re all set and ready to play!
Other Things You Could Do with this Weather Matching game
If your little ones have mastered the original game you can take it to the next level by printing the second page with the weather tiles again so you’ll now have two sets.
That way, you’ll also be able to play a weather memory game.
I’m sure you know how to play this game (sometimes called pairs), but in case you don’t it’s pretty easy:
- First, shuffle all the cards together
- Then lay them all face down in neat rows
- Starting with the youngest player, take turns turning two cards over
- If they match, you can keep them and have another go. If they don’t your turn is over and play moves to the the next player.
- Play continues in this fashion until the last pair is collected
- Count up all cards (a good chance to get a bit of counting practice in) and whoever has the most wins!
This game is great for developing memory and concentration skills.
If you’d like to make the game even more challenging you could combine it with another of these matching game so there’s even more tiles:
Some Tips To Get Some Extra Language Development In
I mentioned above that these kinds of matching games can be great for language development as well as improving visual discrimination skills.
Talking about what they can see while they’re playing is always great.
Ask them to think about the colors. What colors can you see? What else in the room is that color? Do you know any animals that have that color on them somewhere?
Ask them about the shapes. What shapes are the clouds made up of?
Talking about shapes can be great to enhance their early math skills as well!
It’s also a great way to relate their learning to the real world. Can you remember when we went out when it was raining and jumped in those puddles? What’s the weather like now? Can you pick the tile which matches the weather at the moment?
Ask them to describe the weather tiles – teach them some new vocabulary like ‘dazzling’, ‘gloomy’ or ‘blustery’.
Later, you could go outside and ask them about the weather they can see. You’ll be surprised how often they use these new words!
I hope you and your little ones enjoy this simple weather matching game!
