::Matching::

"Matching activities focus on the 'sameness' of attributes" (Irons, 1999, p.27)

"Matching involves identifying objects that have a common attribute" (Yelland, Butler & Diezmann, 1999, p.9)

For examples:

During matching activity, children match the wooden blocks with the same shape and colour.

This activity gives opportunity to the children to make choices and then talk about their selections. Therefore, teacher should encourage children to describe why the particular object match by using language that related to the attribute that they have chosen (Irons, 1999). 

This is the example of task sheet that the teacher could give to the children in order to improve their matching skills:

Taken from: Irons, R.R. (2003). Growing with Mathematics: Student Book. Chicago: Wright Group/McGraw-Hill. (page 6)

 

This task sheet helps the children to find and colour the matching pairs of the leaves. In addition, the children might find it easier to see the matching pairs when they colour each matching pair with different colours.