Rules as words or pictures
Drag shapes onto a board until every rule is true. One setting turns the written rules into pictures for pre-readers.
When to use it
Upper primary lessons on position words, where pupils turn sentences about above, inside and behind into an arrangement. A pre-reader or EAL group, with the same rules shown as pictures instead. A station in a carousel that needs no adult beside it, because every rule ticks itself off.
What makes it this
Built on the Spatial reasoning generator with these changed. Everything else is the default.
- How rules reach the player
As pictures — shape, arrow, shape — or as written sentences.
In the builder: How it plays
- Each object placed only once
A shape already on the board greys out in the tray, so duplicates are off the table.
In the builder: How it plays
Preview
View only — copy it to play.Shape sentences: build what the rules say
Every exercise is a list of sentences that must all be true at the same time. Drag shapes out of the tray and arrange them until each rule ticks green — tapping a shape brings it in front of the others, and the swatches recolour whichever shape is selected.
6 exercises
Why the example is built this way
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Each exercise adds one kind of rule.
Direction first, then size, containment, which shape is in front and colour, and finally all of them at once. The first exercise teaches what the board does; the last only works because the others came before.
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Written rules for readers, pictures for pre-readers.
Pictures show each relation as an arrow or a diagram, which skips the step readers are practising. For a younger group, change How rules reach the player and nothing else needs to change.
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One of each shape.
With Each object placed only once on, nobody can meet one rule with one star and the next with a second, so each exercise stays one scene. Leave Hide the colour picker off when a rule is about colour.
Build it yourself
- 1 Open the Spatial reasoning builder and fill in the Exercises & objects tab.
- 2 Change the settings under What makes it this. Each one says where it is in the builder.
- 3 Share the link with your players, or embed the activity in your own site.
Or skip the building: copy this example and swap in your own content.