Copy the model

💡 How it plays and why it helps

Two rows can hold the very same shapes and still not match. Copy the model, a Pre-K patterns game, is built on that fact. Each round shows five model rows of colored shapes, such as a pink heart, an orange diamond, a pink heart, with four rows below to choose from. The instruction is read aloud, and your child taps the row that is exactly the same. Every answer is checked, and the matching row is described shape by shape.

Matching a row in order is the groundwork for patterns. Before a child can continue heart, diamond, heart, diamond, they need to see that order is part of what makes a row. The wrong rows are close on purpose: one swaps two shapes, one slips in a red circle, one is a shape short.

The likely mistake is choosing a row with the right shapes in the wrong order, heart, diamond, diamond, heart. The hint is the cure: compare one shape at a time, left to right. Put a finger on the model and one on a row, then ask, "Same, or different?" Move both fingers together. Name what you saw: "You checked every single shape."