12 Simple Visual Perception Activities for Preschoolers

Visual perception is an essential skill that should be developed during the early years of a child’s life.

Here’s what it means, why it’s so important for learning, and 12 simple activities to help develop it.

What is Visual Perception?

Visual perception is the brain’s ability to interpret what the eyes see, forming part of a child’s perceptual-motor skills.

It works alongside other sensory perceptions—auditory (sound), olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste), and tactile (touch)—as well as motor skills such as body awareness, coordination, and spatial awareness.

What is an Example of Visual Perception?

An example of visual perception is when a child reads a word.

Let’s say the word is dog.

The brain deciphers the shapes as letters, distinguishes similar ones (like ‘b’ and ‘d’), and recognizes the word’s meaning. It’s about interpreting what is seen—not just seeing it.

Why is it Important?

Visual perception is crucial for children to understand their environment and develop school readiness. Well-developed visual skills are essential for learning to read, write, and do maths.

Activities such as memory games and puzzles are key to building these essential skills and laying the foundation for formal learning.

What are the Types of Visual Perceptual Skills?

These are the types of visual perception skills described by Marike de Witt, author of The Young Child in Context: A psycho-social perspective, along with their importance for learning:

• Visual Discrimination: Recognizing similarities and differences (e.g., b vs. d, S vs. 5).

• Visual Memory: Remembering what the eyes have seen, like letters, numbers, and sight words.

• Sequential Memory: Remembering visual sequences, crucial for spelling and copying numbers accurately.

• Visual Comprehension: Understanding and interpreting what is seen to solve problems.

• Perception of Shapes: Distinguishing shapes regardless of size or position.

• Depth Perception: Judging distances, vital for movement.

• Figure-Ground Perception: Focusing on specific details while ignoring background, helpful for reading and copying.

• Visual Analysis and Synthesis: Breaking down and reconstructing visual patterns, important for reading.

• Visual Closure: Recognizing whole shapes from partial views, aiding in reading fluency, especially of sight words.

As you can see, learning to read, write, and do maths involves much more than just recognising letters and numbers.

Focusing on developing your child’s visual perception will greatly support school readiness and build early writing and pre-reading skills.

12 Visual Perception Activities and Games

Developing visual perceptual skills is best done through play.

Activities like building puzzles, playing memory games, drawing, sorting, making patterns, and engaging in fine and gross motor activities all help enhance these skills. There’s no need for formal worksheets—just plenty of fun, hands-on play.

Here are 12 activities that target various skills, such as visual memory and discrimination:

1. Matching Card Game

Matching card games have pairs of matching pictures.

Lay one set out in front of your child. Keep the other set. Show one card at a time and ask your child to find the matching picture.

Variation: Place both sets of cards face up and shuffled, then use a timer to see how long it takes your child to match all the pairs.

2. Memory Game

Play a memory game with the cards used in the game above.

Lay all the cards face down and shuffled. Take turns turning any two cards over on the table.

If you turn over a matching pair, you keep the cards. If the pair doesn’t match, turn the cards back over and wait for your next turn.

This is an excellent game for developing visual memory, as your child needs to remember where the pictures are in order to find matching pairs.

The winner is the person with the most matching pairs at the end.

Get your own set of printable memory card games here!

3. I Spy

Play the classic game I Spy by pointing out things by their visual aspects.

Example:

I spy something that is round, flat, and rough.

4. Build Puzzles

Building jigsaw puzzles is one of the best activities your child can do. Have puzzles available at home and make them part of regular playtime.

Ensure the puzzles are age-appropriate—the younger the child, the bigger and fewer the pieces should be. They should be slightly challenging but doable. If the puzzles are too difficult, children may lose interest and feel discouraged.

The best quality educational puzzles are made of wood and have a wooden supporting board.

5. Sort Dry Pasta

Give your child an ice cream tub filled with mixed dry pasta and ask them to sort it by shape (e.g. tubes, spirals, etc.), or even by colour if you have colourful pasta.

You can still wash them and cook them afterwards!

6. Sort Buttons

Take a tub of buttons with different shapes and colours and provide containers to sort into, such as yoghurt cups or an egg tray.

Ask your child to sort them using specific criteria, then change the criteria to increase the challenge.

The buttons can be sorted by:

• colour
• size
• shape (if they are not all round)
• number of holes in the middle (more advanced)
• Fabric vs. plastic buttons

Here are more button activities for preschoolers.

7. Sort Shapes

Use play shapes or coloured counters and sort them in the same way as the previous game. Again, provide different criteria each time.

Sort the shapes by:

• colour
• shape
• size
• thickness

8. Remember What You Saw

Choose any 5 household items, natural items from the garden or toys and lay them out in front of your child. Allow your child at least half a minute to look at the items and memorize them.

Then, cover them with a cloth and see if your child can recall all five items. Start with fewer items if your child is younger and increase the number with time.

Then, place 5 items and remove only one item. Ask your child which item was removed from the set. Then try and remove 2 items.

9. Remember the Order

A variation of the previous game that teaches sequential memory is to have your child watch you place five items down. Then mix them up and ask your child to place them back in the same order.

You can also use the cards from the matching game above. Place five cards on the table, cover them, and ask your child to find the same five cards in their set and arrange them in the correct order.

10. Where’s Waldo?

Where’s Waldo, or originally Where’s Wally from Britain, is a fun series of books where you have to find Waldo in a maze of people in different scenes.

These books are excellent for visual perceptual development—and they’re lots of fun too.

11. Straight Edge Puzzles

Straight-edge puzzles differ from regular jigsaw puzzles because the focus is not on matching puzzle shapes, but on observing picture details such as colours and lines.

12. Can You See What It Is?

Place a set of 5 or 6 shapes on a table in a line. Cover half of each shape at the same time by placing a sheet of paper or cloth over them. Ask your child to name the shape.

Vary this game by showing partial images in books—for example, just an animal’s ear—and asking your child to guess which animal it belongs to.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these ideas for developing your child’s visual perception. There are many different games you can play, and hopefully these ideas will inspire you to create your own as well.

Here are a few ideas for further developing visual memory.