Helping children to notice similarities and differences in everyday life helps them to spot patterns and to use their reasoning skills. Spotting patterns and logical reasoning are key when learning mathematics.
Ask children “What is the same?” “What is different?”
Then ask them to explain what they notice, this improves their language and thinking.
Digit Dog and Calculating Cat are playing “what’s the same and what’s different?” with their Easter eggs.
Look at the two eggs and find similarities and differences. Any answer is acceptable. Encourage children to keep looking for more. Make a list that can be added to.
What can you say about the two eggs? What do you notice?
Can you think of anything that is the same?
I can see that both eggs have Peter Rabbit on them.
Encourage and model the use of full sentences.
Anything else?
Both eggs are made of chocolate.
Both eggs are in a box.
Can you think of more things that are the same?
What about the differences? What is different about the two eggs?
I can see that one egg has creme eggs in it and the other has mini eggs.
Any other differences?
The boxes are different colours.
Use your own Easter eggs to play this game.
Digit Dog Challenges 