We took inspiration from one of my son’s favourite books and focused on learning opposites.

I went through the book and decided on items that would demonstrate the pairs of opposites. I printed out some word labels to stick to the opposite examples, and this tied all the activities together (link to free printable at the end). I wasn’t sure if it would be too many words to do all in one go, so I split it into two sections.

I got our huge gym ball and taped a ping pong ball on top of it!
Short and TallThe first idea to come to mind here was my husband and son! So I found a photo of them that really highlighted the height difference.
High and LowI taped the name labels to a high and low spot on a door frame. But I also used the ping ping ball, throwing it up for “high” and bouncing it to the floor for “low”. No photos, unfortunately!

I used F’s super speedy key cars and an almost-out-of-battery train. I think matching the words to his own toys really helped him to understand the differences.

Heavy and Light
As tempting as it was to use a really heavy hammer and a feather, I played it a little safer and used a heavy book and a light book.
Day and Night I remade the “N” from the Canon ABC Pop-Up Booklets which has a pull-tab to move between day and night.
Many possible options here but I decided to go simple with two orange cups; one with pompoms in, one with them out.

For this pair I used a kazoo (which makes a breathy sound when you don’t play it correctly) and a megaphone – which handily already had the word “shout” printed on it! I demonstrated both sounds and F had a go with the kazoo.


I thought that some Boynton-style silliness was probably overdue by this point, so I put a pair of F’s socks correctly onto a toy frog, and incorrectly onto the ears of a toy bear.

This was an on-the-spot preparation, with one hot pancake and one straight out of the freezer.

Like the short/tall pair, I wanted to make this recognisable to F so I used a photo of him with his Granny.
Wet and DryFor this I used a wet and dry sponge and put them in little dishes.


If you’d like a free printable of the words used in this activity, please send me an email at georgina @ craftulate.com (remove the spaces!)