A Match for the Patch
Finding two colours that are the same
How it plays
A grid of colour patches, each with a twin somewhere in the grid. Your child taps one, then finds its match. Picking is shown with an outline rather than a colour change, so it works for children who find colours hard to tell apart.
What it's for
Finding two colours that are the same. It adapts as your child plays: after a few rounds that go well it steps up a little, and after a couple of hard ones it quietly steps back. The level number only ever goes up.
There is no score to lose and no way to fail. A wrong move is met with a gentle nudge, and a level ends when it's won.
Away from the screen: Sock pairs
About two minutes, with things most homes have.
- Tip a basket of clean socks onto the floor.
- Find the pairs together.
- Talk about how you know: the same colour, the same stripes, the same size.
Three questions to ask while they play
- Which one is the same as this one?
- How do you know they match?
- Can you remember where you saw that colour?
Play together
Things to say or ask
- Which colour are you looking for?
- Look at the pattern too, not just the colour.
- You remembered where that one was!
Taking turns on one device: Take turns finding a pair. The player waiting points to where they think the twin is.
Talk-about cards: a question a day for a week, for the car or the dinner table. Print them, or read them from your phone.
If they find it hard
Try it side by side, with your child pointing and you tapping.
A sheet to print
Print the A Match for the Patch sheet
One A4 page, in black and white or colour.
From two to eight
Tiny Steps: made for two- and three-year-olds too. With Tiny Steps on, it stays on its gentlest level, a not-yet tap is never counted, and there's nothing to read.
Switch Tiny Steps or Big Steps on in Who's playing?, on the grown-ups' page.
What it practises
- Colours. Noticing and matching colours.
EYLF 4.2 (Early Years Learning Framework V2.0) - Noticing what's the same. Looking closely to find two that match.
EYLF 4.2 (Early Years Learning Framework V2.0)
The codes are from the Early Years Learning Framework V2.0 (for children from birth to five) and the Australian Curriculum v9 (Foundation to Year 2). Each links to the official wording. Every skill, and the games for it.
What it costs, and what we collect
Nothing, and nothing. There is no account, no advertising and no tracking of any kind. Which games have been played is remembered on your own device and is never sent anywhere. The full version is here, and it's short.
Where it lives
A Match for the Patch lives in The Bright Spot — shapes, colours and noticing. It works on a phone, a tablet or a classroom screen, and once it's been opened it keeps working with no signal at all.
Updated