Colour sorting activity for toddlers

Here is a fun and educational colour sorting activity for toddlers that can easily be done at home or in a classroom environment!

It has been the last few weeks that I’ve really noticed that Possum (aged 2) showing a greater interest in the colours of objects. She will often blast out with, “that’s green” or similar, and although she is not always correct, she is still demonstrating to me that she has some understand of the concept of colours and the appropriate words used to describe them.

So I created a very simple colour sorting activity that would suit most toddlers displaying similar interests.

Age – 2+ 

You will need

• Sticky contact paper
• Paper frame (completely optional)
• Sticky tape
• Coloured cellophane

Simply roll out an area of sticky contact and fix down your paper frames. Trim the edging and mount. Chop pieces of coloured cellophane. I decided I wanted to add another layer to this experience by cutting them into basic shapes, allowing an opportunity to discuss shapes at the same time.

I purposefully chose to only provide three colours that needed to be sorted. This is because my purpose was to only teach a few colours and get them better understood than trying to overwhelm Possum with more. Sure, she probably could have sorted lots of colours during this activity but I don’t think she would have walked away with the  understanding she now has from what I provided her.

You can also see that I created a significant space between each frame.  This is because I wanted her actions to be purposeful and the distance meant that she could easily see what was being created. It also avoided her just adding coloured cellophane randomly.

Possum did a fabulous job and had not difficulty in sorting the colours. She did decide to add a purple piece of cellophane, possibly to see how I would react, but that also created an opportunity to talk about the differences in colour etc.

That hair was brushed this morning too! LOL

After some time Possum chose to move on from the task, which is completely fine. Overall, this activity was a lovely one for us to do together and it really didn’t take much to set up and encourage her to do. I feel quite confident she has a much better understanding of the colours ‘yellow’, ‘green’ and ‘purple’ and her skills in grouping and sorting.

Does your child have a good understanding of colour names? 

Some other colour related posts 

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