#65 For All Ages

For All Ages

Grown-ups: Help kids refine their sorting and work with more subtle variations. Investigate the different kinds of gradients professionals use in their work, as well as professional terms and measuring tools.

Babies: Make the differences more obvious. Babies can distinguish properties of objects at birth, but they are easily distracted by multiple properties of the same object. Try to find or make objects that are identical except for that one property, such as nesting dolls of the same color and shape.

Toddlers and Young Kids: Go on a scavenger hunt! You can find and make gradients about anything, from spaceships by size to xylophone notes by key. Play the game where one person closes the eyes, the other removes several pieces from a long gradient, and the first one then guesses correct places for pieces. This is a challenging game for sounds or textures, even for adults.

Big Kids: Use gradients to make objects and conditions fit your needs. How bright does your room need to be to study the best? Experiment with a dimmer. Do you need to wiggle more or less to concentrate? Where exactly are you, this very moment, on the wiggly gradient? Train the senses to recognize subtler distinctions in the areas your child loves, such as art gradients (hue, value), music gradients (pitch, loudness), sports (the strength of a kick), and so on.