Use wooden parquetry or pattern blocks to introduce the concept of matching. Show children two yellow triangles and ask children if they match. Listening to their answer will help you know where to begin your lesson. Hold up two different-colored blocks of the same shape; ask if they match. Use the pattern blocks and ask children to make a match. For example, hold up a red circle and ask one child to sift through the other blocks to find a shape that matches your shape.
Draw a simple shape pattern on a piece of paper and encourage children to match the pattern by drawing their own. Alternatively, use pattern blocks and allow children to move pieces around to match a simple pattern such as a star, diamond or circle. Create a pattern using all the same shapes in two different colors. For a challenge, create a pattern using two different shapes and two different colors.
To explain that children can match objects using different attributes, have children remove their shoes and place them in a line. Ask two or three children to group all of the shoes by color. Hold up two different shoes that match in color. Ask children how they are alike and how they are different. Explain that while their colors match, the shoes are not a matching pair. Mix all of the shoes up and allow children to group them into matching pairs.
Use paint to place a different-colored dot in each compartment of an empty egg carton. Give children a collection of colored beads or buttons and encourage them to match the color in the compartment to the color of the beads. Ask them to find as many beads of one color as they can. As an extension activity, have children count the number of beads they find. For a challenge, write a number in the bottom of the egg-carton compartments using different-colored markers or paint. Encourage children to find that specific number of colored beads to place in the compartment. For this game, children will need to match based on two attributes.