What is it?This is a game where the child will be read a short absurd story comprising a few pictures, and then asked to arrange the pictures in the same sequence. The child is then asked to flip over the arranged pictures and asked where a particular picture is, to train his memory. Usually, the more absurd the story is, the easier it is to remember.
How to make it yourself
Make flashcard out of A5 size paper, Stick the pictures on it and make your own story. Make smaller versions of the pictures, with no markings behind it. Laminate it.
What purpose does it serve?
When the child is asked to listen to the story, he is trained in his Visual Figure-ground and Auditory Figure-ground, which is the ability to attend to one activity without being distracted by other surrounding activity.
By arranging the pictures in the same sequence, the child needs to use his Visual memory and Auditory memory and Visual-Sequential memory to remember the arrangement. This is important to effect accurate recalling of details, which is useful in school when child needs to copy words from the board to his notebook.
Visual Spatial-relations skills will also be needed to understand the sequencing, and recognising left to right.
As some pictures may be very similar, Visual Discrimination, which is the ability to notice subtle differences, will be activated to differentiate different pictures in order to place them in the correct sequence.
The child also needs Visual-motor skills and fine-motor to pick up and arrange the pictures in the way that he sees it. He must also be able to tolerate the texture of the material used.
As the story being told is absurd, he Logic function in his brain will be triggered to recall the details that is weird.
Summary of developmental objectives
Visual-motor, Visual-memory, Auditory memory, Visual discrimination, Visual figure-ground, Visual Spatial-relations, Visual-Sequential memory, Fine-motor, Logic, Tactile, Proprioceptive.
