Match the Dot Printable

Match the Dots Printables for Alphabet Letters, Numbers and Shapes is a great activity for fine motor development, control and concentration.  It is also a great way to introduce children to learning letters, numbers and shapes.

This activity involves placing tokens, gem stones, buttons or pompoms onto the circles inside the shape of the letters, numbers and shapes. Children become familiar and begin recognise the shape of letters, numbers and two-dimensional shapes.

What you will need? 

These printables can be used with a number of manipulatives such as buttons, transparent tokens, pompoms and gem stones.  Other ideas may include, sticker dots, dot pens or play dough rolled into small balls.  We have laminated our templates for durability so they can be re-used again.

To set up this invitation to play, we place one or two templates on a tray with a basket (container) of one of the manipulatives pictured above, such as pompoms for the shapes.  You may like to put a number of tokens out in separate containers to provide a choice.

Alphabet Letters A-Z 

Depending on the age and ability of the child, I would suggest placing out only one or two letters at a time when setting up this invitation to play.  26 letters would be overwhelming for young children and they may lose interest in the activity quickly.

Some Ideas 

• Talk about the letter name and what sound the letter makes.
• Talk about some words that begin with that letter and point to objects in the room beginning with the sound.
• Create patterns with the tokens.
• Match the coloured dots to the coloured tokens.

Click here to download and print A-Z Alphabet Letters:  Printable Alphabet Letters A to Z Templates

Numbers and Counting 

The Match the Dots Number Templates consist of numbers 0 to 9 and also show the value of that number providing an opportunity for children to count out loud.

Some Ideas: 

• Talk about the numbers and practice drawing it by tracing over the number with your finger.
• Look for objects in the room and count how many. For example, when completing number four, count four ‘lights’ in the room.
• Create patterns with the tokens.
• Match the coloured dots to the coloured tokens.

Click here to download and print 0-9 Numbers: Printable Numbers Templates

Shapes

The Shapes Templates have been created to also encrouage the learning of colours, such as the circle has green dots and we provided green pompoms to match.  Children will search and sort for the matching colour pompom to the pictured shape on the template.

The printable includes circle, triangle, rectangle, square, kite, heart, star and oval.

Click here to download and print these shapes:  Printable Shapes Templates

Learning Opportunities: 

• Letter recognition
• Oral language development – hearing the sound and saying it out loud.
• Development of fine motor skills
• Eye & hand coordination – watching and doing and coordinating these actions.
• Sensory- Development of the sense of touch. Feeling and manipulating objects.
• Learning alphabet letter name and letter sounds.
• Spatial awareness
• Creativity
• Identify and recognise Colours
• Mathematical concepts, measurement, shape and patterns

Take a look at our other Printables <HERE>