#61 For All Ages

For All Ages

Grown-ups: Help kids keep the structure, and bring up famous chimeras and modular structures from mythology or engineering. Kids may get bored drawing similar pictures in many cells, so help them finish grids quickly. Then play with hiding cells, taking grids apart and other puzzles. Find examples of using grids for combinations in everyday and scientific media.

Babies: Draw combination grids in front of babies using favorite animals, objects, or colors. Put the pictures up where the baby will be able to see them, for example, in corridors where you often carry the baby. Name combinations as you point at them (“cat-bird” and “bird-cat”).

Toddlers and Young Kids: Kids can help make grids with prepared cut-out parts or drawing. You can also use stencils, stamps, and stickers to form combinations. Make cells about half a foot in size – on a blackboard or a sidewalk with chalk – to make it easier for toddlers to draw.

Big Kids: Spend a bit more time to make a nice, artistic grid you can put up on a wall. Find grids in scientific media (they will probably have numbers or symbols) or in art and design. Ask “How many?” questions about combinations, which lead to multiplication. For example, a grid for three heads and four bodies has twelve chimeras total, because 3x4=12. Take turns posing puzzles with grid parts missing, or mixed up in wrong places.