How many of us really think about how we describe a texture?
I mean if we see something that is shiny, do we say that it feels shiny or do we say it feels smooth?

I had not really thought about it until I came across this learning game, called Teaching Tac Tiles.
Take a moment to think how you reference something similarly. The reason I say this is because teaching these texture concepts of smooth, rough, bumpy or ridged, to young children can be hard because they can easily confuse what they see….shiny versus what they feel….smooth.
The textured Tac-Tiles set includes 16 colored tiles. Each Teaching Tac-Tile comes in one of four colors, and each color is a certain shape.
The red are all triangle.
The blue one are all rectangle.
The green are all hexagons .
The orange ones are all squares.
Now comes the interesting part….
Each shape has one of the following textures: smooth, rough, bumpy and ridged.
In addition to the tac-tiles, the sensory game comes with a bag for easy storage and 10 cards with various shapes on them with various textures. The idea of the game is to put the tiles in the bag and have the child reach into the bag and pick out a tile. Before taking the tac-tile out of the bag, the child is asked to feel it and identify its shape and texture.
The next part of the game is to have one of the cards out and the child reaches into the bag and tries to pull out the tile and texture that matches the one on the card.
I think this would be easy, fun and educational. And something that is great here is that if your child has trouble finding words to describe things, simply using the game to teach these shapes and colors alone would be made so much easier because it would be play time, not work.

Those with Dyspraxia, who might have trouble finding the words and those with speech delays would both benefit from the speech skill building aspect of the Teaching Tac-Tiles game.
Something that comes with this game is a great guide to its uses. This guide has step by step instructions for how to begin to use the Teaching Tac-Tiles. It is great if your child has special needs because not always do we know what to do first, next and last.
As I was looking at the learning game, I started to think of how it would be fantastic to use the tiles to work on patterns. Or even using the game to help a child work on crossing midline by putting the tiles on one side of a work table and the cards on the other.
I think in its simplicity, the tac-tiles are wonderfully complex in what they deliver. And to be truthful the whole game packs up into the pouch and, in my opinion, would fit nicely into sensory bin.
So please take look the Teaching Tac-Tiles. The tactile tools provide more than just sensory input, this educational toy helps to promote color, texture and shape identification along with so many early developmental concepts!
I hope everyone has a peaceful week.
Michele Gianetti
Author of “I Believe In You: A Mother and Daughter’s Special Journey” and “Emily’s Sister”

Advertisement