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Home » Reading Ideas » Getting Ready to Read » Tic Tac Toe Spatial Orientation

Tic Tac Toe Spatial Orientation

February 22, 2016 •

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Are you directionally challenged when traveling somewhere new?  Stop for a moment and think about everything you need to consider when you are trying to drive to a new restaurant, doctor’s office or a distant city.  You have to consider location, distance, direction, and perspective.  Some of us are better at this than others.  Those of use who are successful have a strong sense of spatial orientation.

Having spatial orientation is an important cognitive structure.  I have been working with my kids on developing it using tangible activities.  Working at this concrete level will make it easier when it comes time to learn to read and write.

Play tic tac toe with a twist to develop spatial orientation and you will help kids develop cognitive structures needed for learning including reading and writing.

Full Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

I had the pleasure of studying under Betty Garner many years ago where I learned about cognitive structures and the impact they have on learning.  If you are interested in delving deeper into spatial orientation or any other cognitive structures, I encourage you to check out Garner’s book, [easyazon_link identifier=”1416606084″ locale=”US” tag=”groboobyboo-20″]Getting to “Got It!”[/easyazon_link]

[easyazon_image align=”center” height=”500″ identifier=”1416606084″ locale=”US” src=”/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/41jCr5gGv2L.jpg” tag=”groboobyboo-20″ width=”333″]

Today, we are sharing  a very simple tic tac toe activity that I learned from Betty Garner that you can also use with kids or adults to build that important cognitive structure of spatial orientation.

TIC TAC TOE SPATIAL ORIENTATION

This is a traditional tic tac toe game with one additional layer of thinking.  Take a look at this board.

learning about spatial orientation by playing tic tac toe with a twist

Having to verbalize position on a tic tac toe board is a great way to develop spatial orientation.

TIC TAC TOE ACTIVITY 1

To play, draw a basic plain tic tac toe board.  You can draw traditional Xs and Os or use small objects such as red and blue candies to be place markers.

As each person “marks” his box, he should say aloud the position he is placing his mark or token.

play a few rounds of tic tac toe and build spatial orientation

In the example above, the player would place their token in the middle  box and say “middle middle.”  Play continues until someone gets three in a row.

TIC TAC TOE ACTIVITY 2

We also use these placement cards to identify position.  On each card, the child has to say where the little bug is on the board.

Where is the bug? This is a fun way to get kids to use language and spatial orientation.

For example, the bee above is “bottom middle.”  Continue with each card.  Repeated practice will help with this placement identification.

You can download all nine cards for FREE below.  Just print and cut the tic tac toe boards apart and you are ready to play.

CLICK HERE TO TAKE YOU TO THE FREE DOWNLOAD PAGE

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Filed Under: All categories, Getting Ready to Read

About Jodie Rodriguez

Jodie Rodriguez is a mom of two young boys and an early childhood/elementary educator with over 20 years of experience. Jodie's passion is helping parents, teachers, librarians and anyone else interested in nurturing and reaching ALL of our youngest growing readers.

Comments

  1. Crystal says

    February 24, 2016 at 8:28 am

    Yay! So many ways to practice spatial directions from the After School Link Up!!! We have been working on this with with CVC words (for testing purposes) for a year. The directional words “second”, “middle”, “next” -is getting much better-, and #2 for a are what is preventing him from answering. Love that this is paired with words we already know: left and right! You are definitely on to something here. Can’t wait to try it!!

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