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This post has been co-written with Ben Wolfson, a full-time educator and assistant principal in the USA.
It doesn’t matter where you are in the country or what gender your preschool students are. There’s something about vehicles and things that go that hold an innate fascination for young children. This is why you’ll always see a crowd around your road play mat and why students are obsessed with standing outside watching cars drive by and planes fly overhead. You can tap into this interest with a transportation thematic unit, and this printable shadow matching worksheet is a fun way to introduce them to different vehicles and helps them practice their visual discrimination skills.
Visual Discrimination in Preschool
There’s a reason why a shadow matching game is so popular in preschool workbooks and booklets. Being able to work out what the shadow of an image is showing you is a key skill for learning as students begin to pay attention to the outside shapes and features instead of colors and internal patterns. This has the biggest transfer of skills as they begin their quest to master the preschool sight word list. A lot of this is down to recognizing the features of the word (how many low hanging letters, how long it is, etc) while they’re still learning the individual letters. This printable shadow matching worksheet is a great way to help students develop these visual discrimination skills as well as starting conversations about different types of transportation.
Preparing Vehicles Shadow Matching Worksheets
For this activity you will need:
Paper
Printer
Pencil or crayons for writing
Optional: laminator and dry erase markers
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Extension Activities For Vehicles Shadow Matching
The premise behind this free shadow match printable is simple. Students look at the color images and the shadows, then draw a line to connect the correct images together. You’ll want to laminate the pages first so that you can reuse them with dry erase markers. To get more out of this transport themed printable shadow matching worksheet, try some of these extension activities:
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Draw your own shadow – once your students have mastered this shadow matching game, you can up the challenge by giving them just the colored pictures and asking them to draw the shadow. Scaffold this task by first allowing them to trace around the object to get a feel for the external features, and then have them do their best work to draw their own version of the shadow for a partner to play with.
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Find a partner – you can turn this vehicle shadow matching game into a social game by cutting the free shadow match printable up so you have a deck of colored vehicles and a deck of their shadows. Hand them out to your students and have them race to find their partner. Up the challenge for this activity by having them complete it without talking or saying the name of the vehicle on their card.
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Memory cards – you can then use these decks of cards to make a memory game for your transportation thematic unit. Make sure all your cards are the same size and have a blank background. Place them face down on a flat surface and challenge your students to work together to find all the matches by turning over two cards at a time.
Like this? Then you’ll love my 10 Transportation Themed Literacy and Math Centers. These easy-prep games will get your students working on letters, phonics, numbers and more!
Games included:
1) Number Writing Mats – 1 to 20 included; Kids will trace the numbers as well as the number word. The number of vehicle images shown on the mats corresponds to the number so these can also be used for counting.
2) Hot Air Balloon Which Is More Clip Cards – 15 comparison sets for numbers 1 to 10; Place a wooden peg or clothespin on the picture with more hot air balloons.
3) Monster Truck Roll and Graph – Graphing sheet for 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 provided together with a special printable dice; Print out, cut, and form the dice. Ask your child to roll it and graph the result to see which monster truck will win the race.
4) Colorful Convertible Memory Match – 9 color pairs included; Turn over the cards 2 at a time trying to find the matching pair by memory.
5) Number Puzzle Strips – 6 different puzzles included for numbers 1-10 (2 designs), 11-20 (2 designs), counting by 2s up to 20, and counting by 10s up to 100.
6) Alphabet Bus Stop – Match the correct letter wheels to the bus according to the object shown on the beginning sound bus stop sign.
7) Parking Cars Tracing LInes – 12 patterns included for pre-writing practice
8) Train Handwriting Practice – Practice writing upper and lowercase letters
9) Truck Lego Letter Formation – Kids will love building the alphabet using the mats provided
10) Taxi Alphabet Matching – 2-piece puzzles to match up upper and lowercase letters
Check it out for more ready-to-go fun!
Fun Books About Vehicles:
Other Printables That Work On Visual Skills:
1) Vehicle Shadow Matching Printable – Looking for some new vehicle worksheets? Help preschoolers develop visual discrimination with this fun vehicles shadow matching printable!
2) Halloween Shadow Match – Preschoolers need visual discrimination and matching skills in order to differentiate between the letters and numbers and to be able to classify objects. This Halloween shadow matching game develops these early literacy and math skills.
3) Emoji Shadow Match – This emoji shadow matching game develops an important early literacy and math skill called visual discrimination.
4) Santa Spot the Differences – This game of visual discrimination will keep your kids busy for a while! Find the 10 differences between these 2 pictures of Santa Land.
5) Emotions Odd One Out – Emotions-themed visual discrimination worksheet to find the odd one out in a group of faces.
6) Emotions Clipcards – Game of finding the matching facial expression and developing fine motor skills at the same time.
7) Autumn Apple I Spy – 3 differentiated levels of I Spy games perfect for an apple themed learning unit.
Complete Your Transportation Themed Unit With These Tools:
Other Free Vehicle Themed Printables:
1) Parking Cars Tracing Lines – More than 10 different tracing line patterns to choose from, all of which help with pencil control.
2) Train Number Writing Practice – Kids will be able to practice their number handwriting skills in this train-themed activity that’s super easy to prep for your transportation learning week!
3) Monster Truck Rhyming Wheels – A fun early literacy activity where your child will pair up the monster truck wheels that have rhyming pictures.
4) Vehicle Shadow Matching – Develop visual discrimination with this fun vehicle-themed worksheet.
5) Construction Counting Mat – This construction-themed counting mat can be used with playdough, Legos or any other small manipulatives you have.
6) Truck Wheel Shape Matching – In this printable preschool shapes activity, they’ll work on early geometry as well as fine motor skills.
