Spatial Reasoning & Perception Activities
The following activities offer numerous benefits in cognitive development, one of the most important being spatial reasoning, which is the ability to look at an image or object and be able to fully understand its properties and relationship to other objects within one’s mind.
Engagement of tangible puzzle pieces, building blocks, and patterned tools significantly aids in the development of hand-eye coordination, creative and divergent thinking, and patient problem solving. Games and puzzles that also offer visual challenges, such as finding the matching design of a tile upon a game board, also supports the brain's development in identifying patterns for students of any age.
__________________________________________________
Swish
Swish is one of Math Engaged's highly recommended games. This clever card game from Think Fun gains its name from the goal to "swish" all colored balls into their respective colored hoops, like basketballs. Players must make Swishes by rotating and flipping cards to get balls and hoops to line up completely. The real challenge? Players can't touch the cards until they've found a Swish, challenging them to rotate, flip, turn, and slide the cards inside their heads, strengthening their spatial reasoning and perception skills. And the more they play, the more players will also discover patterns between the balls and hoops of the cards, helping them think like true mathematicians!

__________________________________________________
Tangrams
Tangrams is a classic activity that significantly supports student's exploration of 2-dimensional spaces and the composition/decomposition of geometry shapes. Tangrams are available in different kinds of variations: bright, large colored pieces ideal for younger children to put together to create colorful pictures; and smaller, all-black pieces ideal for older puzzlers to create a more silhouette style picture.
As students begin to learn geometry in mid-elementary school, educators are finding that students are struggling with basic dissecting of non-simple shapes, such as finding the area of an L-shaped room by splitting the total area into two smaller areas that are perfect squares. Playing with tangrams allows children to explore how smaller shapes come together to create more complex shapes and visa versa, allowing students of all ages to strengthen their spatial reasoning skills and geometric skills while still having fun in conquering challenges!
Tangram kits are available for check-out at the Durland Alternatives Library!


__________________________________________________
Pentominoes
Pentominoes offer all the amazing benefits as tangrams -development of spatial reasoning skills, strengthening of problem solving skills, and the joy of solving challenging but approachable puzzles - with an even more mathematical approach than before! Pentominoes get their name from their area - 5 (pent) units squared -and puzzlers can explore how to combine and break apart areas of 5 units in numerous ways. Students can explore both perimeter and area as they reason their way through solutions for each challenge.
Available for check-out at the Durland Alternatives Library!

__________________________________________________
Set
You can't play Set and not think about mathematical set theory! This popular game challenges the mind like no other. A collection of 81 unique cards feature designs that are comprised of four variables: color, shape, quantity, and fill. Twelve cards are laid down face-up, and players must find a set of three cards where - for each of the four variables - everything must be the same, or everything must be completely different! For example, a set might include three cards that are all red, have all diamonds, all have a solid fill, but all have different quantities. Or, a set might be three cards that have all different shapes, all different colors, all different quantities, and all different fills - which is one of the most difficult sets to find! Set challenges players to think about the relationships among cards and to develop stronger problem solving skills: with 220 unique ways to combine three cards out of the twelve out on the table, how can each player efficiently ask the questions they need in their head to quickly recognize successful sets? Set can be played with any number of players or even solo, and has received multiple awards including MENSA Select Award, Creative Child's Preferred Choice Award, and Teacher's Choice "Best 25 Games of the past 25 years" award.
Available for check-out at the Durland Alternatives Library!


__________________________________________________
Blink
Blink is a great game to get warmed up into the Set mindset. The deck of cards features visuals that are made up three variables: shape, color, and quantity. The goal of the game is for players to deplete their own deck of cards, and that's done by matching at least one variable of the card in their hand with the top card in one of two face-up files on the table. For example, if a player draws a card that has three yellow moons from their deck, and there's a face-up card on the table that has one yellow triangle, the player can place their card down on the table calling the variable that it is in common - "Color!" - and move onto the next card. The players are rapidly analyzing their cards and making matches at the same time, and the first player to play all of their cards win!
Available for check-out at the Durland Alternatives Library!

__________________________________________________
Q-Bitz
Q-Bitz is a game of manipulating colorful cubes to recreate the unique patterns defined by the challenge cards, and can be played against opponents or even solo! The challenge cards feature black & white designs consisting of diagonal lines, circles, squares. Each player takes a set of 16 cubed playing pieces, each with a different pattern upon each face of the cube (diagonal lines, solid faces, or circles), and the players must figure out how to turn, flip, and arrange the cubes to recreate the challenge card. First person to correctly recreate the image wins! Q-Bitz gives players the chance to develop multiple skills, including visual decomposition (much like Tangrams), recognizing patterns (both in the symmetries of challenge cards and in the placement of designs upon the faces of the cubes), and patient problem solving (especially in the face of time constraints!) Q-Bitz has also received the Parents Choice Gold Award from the Parents Choice Foundation, and while the box recommends the game for ages 8+, we recommend this game for students even younger, especially with the guidance of parents to start with easy challenges and build their skills up.


__________________________________________________
Korner'd
Korner'd is a fantastic game for even the youngest of puzzlers to foster the development of perception skills and pattern identification. The gameplay is easy: select a number of square tiles, each with a different combination of colored corners, and find that tile's match on the board. With so many colored squares in a random assortment upon the board, players need to develop strategies for how to identify their tile's unique combination of colors among the sea of squares on the board. The goal of the game is to be the first player to play all of his or her tiles on the board, but Korner'd can also be played solo for
the same exercise in developing pattern-recognition skills. The makers of Korner'd, Endless Games, have also paired up with Autism Speaks after having discovered the approachability and benefits of the game for students with autism, and 5% of Korner'd sales are donated to autism research.
If you enjoy Korner'd, try Acuity! Created by Fat Brain Toy Co, Acuity follows the same gameplay as Korner'd but with two distinctly different features: the tiles all features shapes in addition to colors, and the players create the board every game by randomly placing 36 tiles, creating a new game play every time!
Korner'd is available for check-out at the Durland Alternatives Library!



__________________________________________________
Legos & Building Blocks
Legos and all kinds of building blocks are a staple of play for every childhood - but did you know that playing with building blocks develops mathematical thinking? Just some of the ways that playing with blocks are beneficial for both a child's mind and body include:
- Developing spatial reasoning skills (thinking 3-dimensionally)
- Developing critical thinking skills
- Developing patient problem solving skills
- Enhancing creativity
- Learning from our mistakes
- Developing pattern recognition
- Developing geometric thinking
- Developing hand-eye coordination
- Improving fine motor skills
Who knew that so many wonderful benefits come from freeform play! Whenever there's down time or you're not sure what other activities can keep your child's mind and hand engaged in learning, a simple tub of building blocks is a wonderful way to foster your child's creativity, mathematical thinking, and joy for creating!



__________________________________________________
More Ideas?
Do you have a strategic game that challenges players to think creatively about developing solutions? Contact us and share your suggestion!