A printable game in the eye-spy format helps preschoolers develop visual discrimination skills. Visual Discrimination is a vital skill to develop in early childhood.
What is Visual Discrimination?
Simply stated, visual discrimination is the ability to see the differences in shapes, textures, sizes. Visual discrimination is a key to reading. As children begin to learn alphabet letters, they need to be able to notice minute differences.
The most obvious example is that when children first begin to learn alphabet letters, preschoolers will often mix up the lower case letters b and d.
How does this St. Patrick’s day printable help with visual discrimination?
- Visually sorting between black and white and color images
- Visually sorting between single color and multi color images
- Visually sorting between shapes of images
What are the other benefits of this St. Patrick’s day worksheet?
There are many reasons why I-Spy worksheets are so popular among preschoolers. Most importantly, this worksheet format is Fun! Kids in Preschool and Kindergarten usually love this type of worksheet because I-Spy is a game.
Skills that are used for this activity:
- Reasoning: Grouping Objects that are alike
- Fine Motor: Writing Numbers or Tally-Marks
- Eye Movement/Coordination: Visual Tracking
- Math: Counting and Writing Numbers or Tally-Marks
This worksheet is great for beginners who are just starting to learn with worksheets. Worksheets are a concept that children in early education have to learn.
An early learner may be able to count physical objects such as blocks, but it is different when counting an object on paper.
How to use this free printable worksheet:
For children who don’t know how to write numerals yet:
If children do not know their numbers yet, they can draw tally marks in the square for each I-Spy picture.
For children using an I-Spy worksheet for the first time:
For some children it will be easier to use a circles to help the visual discrimination process.
The child can draw circles around the matching set of objects as a first step. Then, the child can count the circled objects and tally the amount in the matching square.
For children with short attention spans:
After the child has found, counted and recorded the group of objects, give the child a two minute break.
During the break the child can do a physical activity. For example, if the child found five physical objects, he/she can do five jumping jacks while counting to five. Or, hop up and down while counting to five. This will help the child to focus for the next set of objects. It also links in a physical activity to a worksheet activity. Linking in a physical activity with a worksheet activity adds an extra level of learning. It also helps the brain grow by establishing links.
Preschool Worksheet Activities:
- Use the physical exercise activity mentioned above.
- Encourage the student to color the unicorns.
- Ask the child to identify the colors of the pictures on the worksheet.
- Ask the child to identify the shamrock shape.
- Ask the child if they can find any hearts in the room (if there are any).
- Ask the child to find the colors of the rainbow pot-of-gold coins picture, and shamrock in the room.
- green, red, yellow, orange, blue purple
Combine this worksheet with the two other St. Patrick’s printable worksheets that I offer:
St. Patrick’s Day Preschool Math Game:
St. Patrick’s Day Positional Worksheet:
Download link:
