Learning Colors by Sorting and Saying

Time to work on colors! There are so many ways to sort and play, but the main point is for you and/or your child to be saying the color names aloud. My son wasn’t a big talker, so just getting the shapes sorted was a fun task for him, too. First gather or make small/flat items you have of each color of the rainbow. (I chose to stay away from shades like teal and coral, for example.) Items can be found or made from about anything – paper, fabric, felt, buttons, lids, etc. These can be sorted into and out of color-labeled plastic bags, and we then stored those in a wipes container. Besides having the small colorful items, you will also need sheets of construction paper, a poster, or some other surface onto which your child can place the small items as he matches the colors. Besides using it for storage, the wipes container is also used for more focused play by dumping in all or some of the items and covering it with the lid. Then he can pull out one random item and place it in the correct spot while saying the color name. Simple and versatile! Here are some photos and description of ways we play our color sorting game:

Organize/sort shapes into plastic bags with colored mailing-label-stickers.

Choosing colors to sort.

Dumping the colors into the tub and mixing them around.

Drawing items from the wipes container and sorting them on the chart.

Sorting on construction paper – we like this way best!

Time to put it all away.