Sweet Pea is 4 years old.
From: This easy activity was from The Activity Mom. (Her site has a whole bunch of fantastic ideas and you should definitely check it out if you haven’t yet.)
Note: We used simple Christmas words for this activity, but you could also draw shapes for younger tots, use upper and lower case letters, numbers or even match foreign language and English words for older kids.
Prerequisite: If you have never played a matching game with your tot, you should try a beginner style game of matching before you add the “memory” component that is required for this activity.
Material:
- 30 Hershey’s Kisses.
- 30 Round (.75 inch) Labels. (We found ours at Target in the office supply section. The circle stickers work perfectly, but in a pinch you could use pieces of masking tape).
- Fine-Tipped Sharpie.
Procedure:
- Think up 15 words (letters, numbers, shapes, etc) that you would like your tot to learn.
- Write or draw the same item on 2 different stickers.
- Help your tot stick all of the labels to the bottom of each Hershey’s Kiss. Read the word (or letter, number, shape, etc) out loud as your tot sticks it onto the Kiss.
- Set the Hershey’s Kisses upright on a table so the bottoms are hidden.
- Take turns flipping over 2 Kisses at a time and reading the words on the bottom.
- Whoever makes a match “wins” the pair of Kisses and gets to go again.
- Play until all of the Kisses have been won.
Observations:
Sweet Pea absolutely loved this game.
Sweet Pea is just starting to recognize some easy words, so I was worried that this might be a bit too difficult for her, but she was so motivated to win her next pair of Hershey’s Kisses that I don’t think she even noticed she was reading.
This activity would suit a wide range of ages depending on what is written on the labels so I would highly recommend this activity for all tots and children.
Notes from the Trenches: After we were done, we put all the kisses in a candy bowl to be eaten by the whole family, but I can imagine some tots may have difficulty parting with their “winnings”.
Rating: 3 Stars * (Fun, Easy, Frugal)
 "Pin It")
 "Pin It")
oooh, thats a great idea. We’ll be trying that one. xx
This is a great idea! I am going to adapt this for my younger son to practice words that go over the speech sounds he is working on, such as TH words.
He loves kisses and will think that this is a fun way to practice!
Thanks for sharing!
if I end up doing a blog post about this activity, I will link back to you.
Have not been doing regular blog posts, as I am undergoing testing, treatment, and soon surgery at Mayo Clinic, but think that this is something that I could easily do just about anywhere with my son, and know that he will just love it!
Might try it with my older son too, with his vocabulary words.
Have a happy day and again, thanks for this cute idea!
Colleen from Sunrise Learning Lab
🙂
Thanks Colleen! What a good idea to use of the Memory Matching game to work on speech sounds!
Hello,
I was perusing the web, looking for great St. Patricks Day activities to share with the pediatric therapy professionals we serve, and found your hersheys kiss matching I was wondering if I could have permission to feature the photo on our Instagram feed.
(http://instagram.com/pediastaff#).
As you may know, I am unable to create a clickable link to your post through Instagram but I would obviously credit your blog and put a link to the specific page the post came from along with suggestion that they visit that page on your blog for directions and more pictures in the description if that works…
Here is the post that has the image I would love to share
http://totschool.shannons.org/memory-matching-game-with-hersheys-kisses/
Thanks so much in advance!
Yes. That is fine with me. Thank you for asking!
Super thanks! For some reason I never received this message. And am only seeing it now because I came back to this page. So I miss my opportunity to do this 🙁 I would love to share other ideas from your website in the future. Might I have ongoing permission per the protocol I outlined above? Please email your response to heidi@pediastaff.com
Thanks!!!
Good game. I am going to use it at my office party. I am using words we use at Christmas time for matchs.
Thanks! Adults are addicted to CHOCOLATE!!!
Oops!!! I missed spelled matches.