Adapting Learning Materials

You've probably seen shape sorters like this all over.  We have one for Tye.  When she and I sat down to play with it to see if she was ready for it, I could tell she was really interested but not ready to discriminate between so many shapes.  Without any direction, she was overwhelmed and frustrated.  

Out came the teacher in me.  I knew I could use this puzzle, but make it work for Tye's current skill set.  

So I cut cardboard squares to cover two of the four sides of the sorter.

Then I taped them from the inside to cover two of the more difficult sides.

I removed the blocks that could no longer be sorted, so now Tye will have to discriminate between six shapes instead of twelve.  I'm not sure the parallelogram will stay, since finding the side that needs to go in first can be pretty challenging, but we'll try.  I know she can complete the other shapes independently.  

After enough practice to ensure Tye is enjoying the block sorting, I'll remove one piece of cardboard at a time, adding blocks slowly until she can complete the whole puzzle.  Now we have a toy that will grow with Tye.