Understanding ‘long’ and ‘short’

Why is this important?
Concepts such as ‘long’/‘short’ and ‘big’/‘little’ are used to describe what something looks like and how things are different from each other (e.g. a pencil could be ‘long’/‘short’/‘fat’/‘thin’/‘big’/‘little’).

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What to do
• Gather together pairs of things that can be described as ‘long’ and ‘short’
(e.g. pencils, dolls with ‘long’ and ‘short’ hair, rulers, trousers, scarves, snakes).
• Put out one of the pairs (e.g. the ‘long’ and the ‘short’ pencil).
• Ask the child to find the ‘long’ pencil, etc.
• The child could post the object in a box or put it in a bag.

You could also go for a walk around a park and collect different sized sticks and compare the sizes, which is long and which is short.