Are you looking for an easy and fun way to help your preschooler or toddler learn colors? Then try this fun and educational color-matching exercise! This simple activity will not only introduce them to new colors while helping them practice their abilities, but it also encourages hand-eye coordination as well as problem-solving.
Your little one is sure to have a blast with this familiar game that is designed just for children of their age group. Read on to find out how you can get started today!
Inspired by the myriad of amazing parenting blogs that exist in cyberspace, I picked up a bunch of paint color samples from our local hardware store.
I just knew that at some point I could use these samples to make color tablets a la Montessori or create some other fun color sorting, matching exercise for my toddler. Wouldn’t you know it, that day finally came!
This image shows two types of activities I created. Honestly my 27-month-old, like many 27-month-old children, knows his basic colors very well. So the activity is more about matching, sorting, and developing of fine motor and problem-solving skills.
Preschool & Toddler Color Exercise
This image shows how simple it is to create these activities. You don’t need much. The color sample shown above was used for the clothespin exercise. I grabbed a sample with an adhesive back. This helped with wrapping a piece of color around the tip of the clothespin.
Materials for this Activity
- Clothespins (Amazon)
- Color Samples with Adhesive Backs (local hardware store)
- Color Tone Sample Cards (local hardware store)
- Colored Popsicle Sticks (I recommend the jumbo popsicle sticks from Amazon)
- Mini Magnets (Amazon)
- Scissors (Already Owned)
- Cookie Sheet if you’d rather instead of using your fridge or dishwasher (Already Owned)
Mini magnets with adhesive backs are great for so many reasons. In this case, I attached a magnet to the back of the popsicle sticks and used them as a way for my son to match a color tone sample card with the same color popsicle stick. This approach worked well although he did just enjoy putting the popsicle sticks on the cookie sheet and dishwasher.
Preschool & Toddler Color Exercise
For fun math and advanced color concept I also provided him with “+” and “=” signs that were included in our original Melissa & Doug Magnetic Numbers. So I showed him once that “Blue” “+” “Red” “=” “Purple” and then he took it from there. Here is an example (like the scratches on our dishwasher?)…
So, for the clothespin exercise, I cut the same sized square (roughly) for each color sample for the square to pin. Then, I cut a strip of the color sample, took the back off and wrapped it around the tip of the clothespin.
To set up the activity, I described each piece of the activity and then showed him an example of taking the “green” clothespin and finding the “green” square and “pinning” it to match.
Honestly, with the exception of the fine motor skill development piece with the clothespin, this exercise was very simple for him so I made it a bit more challenging to him by presenting him with the clothespins already attached to the colored squares.
The catch was that they were attached to the wrong colored squares so he had to identify the inconsistency and then take the exercise from there.
This image is not the best. I took it with my phone but you get the idea. We used our dishwasher but you can use a cookie sheet or some other creative magnetic device.
Have fun and thanks for visiting!
Marnie