Where's Teddy?

A back-and-forth hiding game built entirely around position words — under, over, beside, between, behind, in front of, on top of, inside, in the middle. The real goal is rich spatial talk: first your child follows your position clues, then they hide the toy and have to tell you where it is. Going from understanding the words to saying them out loud is the whole point.

  1. Pick a favourite toy (Teddy works perfectly) and choose one room or the garden as your playing space.
  2. You hide, you describe. While your child covers their eyes, tuck Teddy somewhere within reach, then give spoken clues using position words: “Teddy is under something soft and behind the door.” Add a second clue if they’re stuck: “he’s between two cushions.”
  3. Your child follows the words. Let them hunt using only your clues — gently resist pointing. When they find Teddy, say it back together: “yes — he was under the blanket!”
  4. Now they hide and tell. Your child hides Teddy and describes the spot to you with position words while you find it: “he’s on top of the shelf, next to the book.” This producing step is harder than following — celebrate any position word they reach for.
  5. Swap and repeat, stretching from one position word to two (“behind and under”) as they grow confident.

Variation — barrier game: you each have an identical teddy and box, sitting so you can’t see each other’s setup (a propped book makes the barrier). One person places their teddy and describes it (“Teddy is inside the box, leaning against the side”); the other places theirs by listening only. Lift the barrier and compare — matching spots mean the words did their job.

Variation — Bear Hunt: read We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and act it out around the house — over the cushion-grass, under the table-river, through the doorway — then send your child on a positional treasure hunt, following a chain of clues to a hidden sticker (and building one back for you).

Requirements

  • Space: Any single room, hallway, or garden — no special area needed. A defined space keeps the hiding spots safe and findable.
  • Surface: None required; it uses the furniture, floor, shelves, and corners already there. The barrier-game version just needs a table or floor where you can prop a book as a sight barrier.
  • Materials: Essentially free — one favourite toy plus the everyday objects in the room. The barrier game needs two identical small items and two identical containers; a picture book such as We're Going on a Bear Hunt and a sticker or small treat are nice extras.
  • Participants: Two or more — one hides, one seeks, with roles swapping so the child both follows and produces the words. An adult (or older sibling) models the position words first, since children mirror the vocabulary they hear.
  • Supervision: Light but present — stay close to model and extend the language (was he on top of the box, or inside it?) and to keep hiding spots safe.

Rationale & Objective

This activity targets a skill research has repeatedly linked to later spatial and mathematical ability: the use of spatial language. In a well-known study, Pruden, Levine and Huttenlocher (2011) recorded families at home and found that the more spatial words parents used, the more their children produced — and children’s own spatial-word use predicted performance on non-verbal spatial tests years later. Experimental work since then suggests the link can be causal: Casasola and colleagues (2020) randomly assigned four-year-olds to spatial-language-rich play and saw larger gains on a mental-rotation task they were never directly trained on. Two design choices make this game apt for a five-year-old. First, it separates comprehension from production: following “put Teddy under the table” is easier than spontaneously saying “he’s behind the curtain, between the books,” and producing relational words is genuinely harder because they encode relationships rather than objects (Gentner, 2003). Second, it builds the exact skills the frameworks name — Common Core K.G.A.1 (describe relative positions using above, below, beside, in front of, behind, next to), Head Start ELOF P-MATH 10 (explores the positions of objects in space), and the EYFS aim that children understand position through words alone, with no pointing. Following two-clue hides also rehearses the multi-step direction-following that underpins both maths and everyday listening.

Honest framing — much of the strongest evidence here is correlational, and the Pruden study actually set its positional “where” words aside from its headline analysis because they tracked too closely with how talkative a child was overall. Experimental training effects are real but modest, and at least one longer parent-led intervention found no lasting benefit. Spatial language is one route among many — blocks, puzzles, drawing, and movement feed the same skills — so treat this as a pleasant, low-cost way to add spatial talk to play, not a guaranteed booster.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: follows simple one-word clues that involve contact or containment — on, in, under — but mixes up the trickier pairs (behind vs. in front of, above vs. below), and tends to point to where Teddy is rather than say the word.
  • Developing: reliably follows a single clear position word and is starting to produce the easy ones (“under the table,” “in the box”), though usually only after a prompt (“tell me where with your words”) and leaning on the same two or three words.
  • Proficient: follows a two-word clue (“behind the chair and under the blanket”) and independently produces a single accurate position word to direct you, including some harder terms (between, beside, behind) used correctly in context.
  • Advanced: strings together a 2–3-word clue chain of their own — “behind the curtain, between the books, on top of the basket” — handles contrastive pairs correctly, and can win the barrier game using words alone.

Safety Notes

  • Set a clear rule that Teddy is only ever hidden at standing reach — no climbing on chairs, shelves, or worktops, and nothing perched high where it could fall.
  • Ban hiding spots inside fridges, freezers, washing machines, dryers, toy boxes with heavy lids, or any cupboard or chest that can latch shut.
  • Supervise stairs and level changes if play moves between rooms, and keep the agreed space on one level for younger or very excited children.
  • Avoid hiding behind heavy, unsecured furniture (bookcases and dressers can tip if pulled) and keep clear of cords, blind cords, and hot surfaces.
  • Stay present during the hunt — the running and excitement of hide-and-seek warrant an adult nearby.

Hints

  • Playfulness: give Teddy a voice and let him “complain” from his spot (“it’s dark under here!”) or insist on hiding somewhere silly — on top of Dad’s head. The sillier the spot, the more the position word lands.
  • Sustain interest: rotate which toy hides, move to a new room or the garden, raise the challenge with two-clue hides, and keep rounds short — two or three hides each, then stop while it’s still fun.
  • Common mistake: doing all the talking yourself, or letting your child point silently instead of nudging them to say the word — and recycling the same two words every time. Pause, wait, ask “tell me where with your words,” and deliberately seed a fresh word each session (“today let’s use between”).
  • Limited space: no spare room needed — one tabletop and a box become the barrier game, or hide Teddy in different positions around a single chair (under it, behind it, on it, beside it, in front of it) to generate the whole set of words.
  • Cross-domain: this is as much a language activity as a maths one — it exercises listening comprehension, expressive vocabulary, and following multi-step spoken directions, all of which feed early reading and classroom listening.
  • Progression: follow one word (“under”) → follow two words (“under and behind”) → produce one word to direct you → produce a 2–3-word clue chain → play the barrier game, where success depends on words alone with no shared view.

Sources

  • Pruden, S. M., Levine, S. C., & Huttenlocher, J. (2011). Children’s spatial thinking: Does talk about the spatial world matter? Developmental Science, 14(6), 1417–1430.
  • Casasola, M., Wei, W. S., Suh, D. D., Donskoy, P., & Ransom, A. (2020). Children’s exposure to spatial language promotes their spatial thinking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 149(6), 1116–1136.
  • Gentner, D. (2003). Why we’re so smart. In D. Gentner & S. Goldin-Meadow (Eds.), Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Thought (pp. 195–235). MIT Press.
  • Szechter, L. E., & Liben, L. S. (2004). Parental guidance in preschoolers’ understanding of spatial-graphic representations. Child Development, 75(3), 869–885.
  • Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, Kindergarten — Geometry: K.G.A.1 (describe objects in the environment using names of shapes, and describe relative positions using terms such as above, below, beside, in front of, behind, and next to).
  • Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework (ELOF), Mathematics Development — Goal P-MATH 10: explores the positions of objects in space.
  • UK EYFS — Development Matters (DfE, 2021), Mathematics: understand position through words alone, e.g. the bag is under the table, with no pointing; discuss routes and locations using words like in front of and behind.
  • Teaching Strategies GOLD Objective 21a (Understands spatial relationships); HighScope Preschool Curriculum — Mathematics KDI 35 (Spatial awareness).