Form constancy

Occupational therapy

﻿Hi, I'm really looking forward to our lesson today. I hope you are too. Before we get started, this is just a little reminder. We're here to support any approaches you might already be using and any work you might have already been set. We know that this lesson is going to be going out to so many different children and families. So if you're not sure about anything or have any questions, then please do contact your usual therapy tip. Have you ever thought about why you know that an apple is an apple, whether it's big or small or turned upside down or different colour? We're going to find out more about that today. What is form constancy? Sounds like quite a big, fancy word, but actually it's a skill that lets us know that something is essentially the same, even when it changes its size, its position or it's in a completely new place. So it helps us recognise that the letter A is still the letter A, whether it's a capital or a lowercase letter, and whether it's in a different font, as you can see down there, or whether it's bold. It helps us to recognise our things even if they move. So you know what shoes are yours when you're getting changed for PE. It is important because it helps us to organise things based on their type. For example, we'll know that we can put all the wax crayons separately to the furry toys, or we can sort the furry toys from the hard toys, or we'll know that the marker pens go in a different pot to the crayons. So when we have to tidy up our tables, we can really do this quite easily. It also means that we can predict. So think about what something might feel like or what it might do. So if you've seen around ball a hundred times, you might think, "Actually that's round. It looks like a ball. I think it might bounce." Have a look at this picture. I have marked out some triangles and you can see there's a little one. And on the yellow there's a triangle. The blue cone is a triangle. Okay? So all these shapes are still triangles, whether they are upside down, whether they're big or whether they're small, or whether they are turned on their sides because they have three pointy sides. Pause the video to get the items that we're going to need for today. So try and find a bag that you can't see through. If you don't have a bag, just find a big towel that you can put over your hands and then toys and objects of various shapes. Okay. Our first activity is the mystery bag. Ask an adult to hide some different items and toys in a bag for you. You can start with just, say, three or four toys. And as you find that you're improving with the skill, you can add more toys, okay? Now put your hand inside the bag. No peeping. Okay. Now the adult is going to give you clues and tell you exactly which item to find. So they might say, "Can you find an object that is round and slightly squishy?" And you'll think, okay, and you'll feel it around, "Oh, this feels like a ball." And when you think you found it, you can take it out, okay? They might say to you, "This item has a round end on one side and the other side is a long and thin. And it as cold when you touch it." So you'll be feeling around, once you've got an item, you can take it out and it's a spoon, okay? So remember, you can make this a lot more challenging by adding lots of more objects or adding more objects that are similar. So you could have a bag with oranges or ripe fruit, apples, plums, and tennis balls. Pause the video now to have a go. For our next activity, we're going to be looking at the odd one out. So ask an adult to find several different objects. One of these objects will be different to the rest of them. Then you're going to have a look at these and say which one does not belong. So for example, if you had a plum, a blueberry, an orange, an apple, and you had a tennis ball. And you know the tennis ball is the odd one out, because even though it's round, it's not a fruit, yeah? And you'll know if you're shown a tennis ball, a football and a shoe. Which one do you think is going to be the odd one out? Yeah, correct. It will be the shoe because it's not round. And again, you can make this easier or harder by having the differences be less obvious or having more objects. Pause the video to try that game. Next, you're going to go on a scavenger hunt. Have an adult give you a challenge to find 10 lots of a certain thing. So this could be a shape, such as a circle, or a letter like a D or an S. You can go around the house trying to find all these different things. You can do it indoors and say you're only going to look in your living room or you can go outside and say, "Let's look in our garden." You can make this more challenging by trying to find more complicated items or having to find more items in a shorter time. Let's have a look at this picture. Can you find circles and rectangles? There are loads of circles on the walls, and we can know that they're circles, even though they're different colours and they're bigger or smaller, and some of them are in fact on top of others. Let's see. Oh, lots of little circles in the ball pool. There is a pink ball down there. Oh, the trampoline is round. That's a circle. Isn't it. And the end of the swing is round. Okay. What about rectangles? Hmm. Can you see rectangles? Okay. And it has an added bonus. Can you find a triangle? Excellent. Ah! What about this room? Circles, squares and rectangles. Hmm. I can see rectangles when I look outside and the bricks of the wall are rectangles. I can see, oh, that cushion over there is a rectangle that has got two long sides and two short sides. Whereas this cushion is a square because the sides are the same. What about circles? Can you find any circles? I find a little green ball on the floor and a Brown food bowl. I wonder who those belong to. Now when the picture is not so busy, it's easier to find things. So when my kitchen is a nice and tidy before my boys have come downstairs and made a mess, it's much easier for me to find something. However, when the picture is really busy, it's a struggle sometimes to find an item very quickly. Look at how messy my desk is. Oh my goodness! Can you see the circles though? I can see a blue circle and a yellow circle. And what about rectangles? Yeah? Pause the video now to try the scavenger hunt. So there are loads of things that we can do to practise our form constancy or the skill and our ability to know that an object is the same, regardless of whether it's bigger or smaller, okay? And you can make it easier by having fewer items to start with. And it's absolutely fine if the adult needs to give you a little clue, okay? You could even just practise by looking at your cutlery drawer and saying, "Right, these are all the forks and these are all the knives." I can't wait to see how well you have done. So please share your work if you'd like to, okay? Ask your parents or your carer to share what you have learned on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak. Bye.

Form constancy

Form constancy

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

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