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Healthcare Training Institute - Quality Education since 1979

Section 24
Shape Sorting Box

Table of Contents | NCCAP/NCTRC CE Booklet

If you have a resident who is able to do the Bank Exercise easily, but has problems doing the Geometric Puzzle, a step higher in difficulty above the Bank Exercise is Shape Sorting.

Materials and Construction
To construct this activity, take a shoe box and cut various shapes in the lid.  The three holes in the shoe box lid can be a circle to drop a Styrofoam ball through; a rectangular-shaped hole, through which a large Gatorade-type lid fits through; and a slot through which a 4" by 4" square of cardboard can fit through.

History Lesson
Here’s a little of the history regarding this activity. Years ago, there was a toy called a Tupperware Shape Ball.  Activity Departments used to give the Tupperware Shape Ball to residents as a one-to-one activity.  However, in many cases it proved to be very frustrating and demoralizing to the resident, because it clearly was a child’s toy.  Also, there were so many shapes with subtle differences, it was hard to match the correct shape with the correct hole.  In many cases the fit was so snug that it required a high level of manual dexterity to actually get the shape into the hole.  The point to be made is that the Shape Sorting Box is a simplified, cheap, much more appropriate, and effective alternative to the old Tupperware Shape Ball.

However, when choosing objects to drop into the shoe box, choose shapes that are mutually exclusive.  That is, for example, with my box, the Gatorade lid will not fit through the hole for the cardboard rectangles.  Neither of these two objects will fit into the circular hole for the Styrofoam ball.  As with the other projects, the shoe box and cardboard rectangle are covered with construction paper and then clear contact paper.
 
A “Cutting” Hint
I find a mat knife or a paint scraper that holds a razor blade works well to make these cuts in the top of the box, or in the case of the Bank Exercise, the top of the butter dish.  Another method would be to take a sharp pointed scissors, and poke a hole to get one blade of the scissors through, then cut. 

How to Introduce the Shape Sorting Box
After you have assessed that a resident can do the lower ability level activities of Caps-in-a-Bowl and the Bank Exercise, you might then put the Shape Sorting shoe box in front of your resident and say something like, “Martha, I have a game for you to try, would you like to try a game for me?  Let me show you how this works.”  I then usually limit my verbalizations, and demonstrate.  I find if I talk too much it distracts the disoriented resident.

Take the Gatorade-type lid and demonstrate how the lid drops through the rectangular-shaped hole.  Demonstrate a couple of times. Then hand one lid to the resident, usually with no or little verbal direction, to see if he or she understood how to do the activity.  If your resident starts to put the lid through the wrong hole, gently guide their hand over to the correct one.  

For the Shape Sorting Box, you need to have a resident that is
1. capable of eye contact, and
2. has the thumb and index finger ability to grasp, as well as
3. an attention span of at least 30 seconds to one minute. 

Adaptations Based Upon Level of Assistance Given
There are two ways to vary the difficulty of Shape Sorting.  First of all you can vary the amount of assistance given.  For example, for your lower functioning resident, your Care Plan Goal might read…

Adaptations Based Upon Changing the Materials
You can adapt the difficulty level of the Shape Sorting Box by varying the number of shapes. 

Or, as with the Bank Exercise, vary the size of the holes in the box lid, thus requiring more or less manual dexterity. 

Care Plan Approaches the Shape Sorting Box could be…

Residents with whom to try Shape Sorting

Culture Change Implementation: Place Shape Sorting in labeled Activity Project Bag left in resident’s room for CNA, volunteer, etc. use.