See the picture, find its shadow
A big bright picture appears at the top, maybe a giraffe, a rocket or a bunch of grapes, and a voice says: find the shadow of the giraffe. Underneath are four gray shadows with no color and no details, only outlines. Your child taps the one with the same shape as the picture. A right answer gets a cheer, and the next picture arrives once the cheer has finished.
Each picture gets one tap. A wrong tap is marked, the voice says oops, incorrect, and the right shadow lights up for a moment before the next picture arrives, so your child sees the answer and never gets stuck. Each round has 50 pictures, with confetti every ten right answers. The score under the shadows shows how many were right and how many were wrong, and at the end of a round your child can play it again or move on.
Three rounds, from easy to tricky
The pictures come in families: farm animals, wild animals, small animals, birds, sea creatures, reptiles and snails, bugs, vehicles, fruit and vegetables, plants, everyday things and things in the sky. The rounds change which shadows sit together.
Round one never shows two shadows from the same family, so an elephant might sit next to a banana, a car and a star. The outlines could hardly be more different.
Round two slips one relative into the row. The shadow of a duck might now sit next to an owl, so your child has to look a little longer.
Round three fills the row with relatives wherever it can: a dog among a cat, a horse and a pig, or a car among a train, a tractor and a bicycle. Telling them apart means looking at ears, tails, legs and wheels, and it keeps a five or six year old thinking.
A picture never comes back soon after it was the one to find. With this many pictures, most children will not see the same one twice in a round.
What your child is really learning
A shadow strips away everything except the outline. There is no color to go on and no face to recognize, so a child has to notice what makes a giraffe a giraffe: the long neck. A rocket is tall with a point on top. A snail has a round shell and a low body. Picking out the few details that make a shape unique is called visual discrimination, and it is one of the skills children lean on most when they start to tell letters apart, because many letters differ by a single stroke.
Talk about the shapes together
Before your child taps, ask a question about the picture. Does it have a long neck? Is it round or pointy? Then look at the shadows together and find the one with the long neck. This turns a guess into looking, and after a few rounds most children start doing it without being asked. If they tap the wrong shadow, look together at the one that lights up and find the part that gave it away.
Real shadows are even better
On a sunny day, go outside and look at your own shadows. Hold up a toy and watch its shadow on the ground or on a wall, then turn it and see the shadow change. With a flashlight at bedtime, make shadow shapes on the wall with toys and see if your child can guess which toy it is. It is the same game with real things, and children love it.
Frequently asked questions
How do you play the shadow matching game?
A big picture appears at the top, such as an elephant, and a voice asks your child to find its shadow. Below are four gray shadow shapes. Your child taps the shadow with the same outline as the picture. Each picture gets one tap, and the score shows how many of the 50 in a round were right and how many were wrong.
What age is the shadow matching game for?
Most children who play are between two and six. In round one the four shadows are very different, such as an elephant, a banana, a car and a star, so a two year old can find the right one with a grown-up pointing along. Round three puts relatives side by side, a dog among a cat, a horse and a pig, which asks an older child to look at ears, tails and legs.
What does matching shadows teach?
It teaches a child to look at the outline of a thing rather than its color or details. A shadow has no eyes, no stripes and no color, only a shape, so the child has to notice that the giraffe has a long neck or that the rocket is tall and pointed. Noticing outlines is the same looking skill that later helps with telling letters apart.