Color sorting is great fun for most older toddlers and preschoolers. If you look around your home, I’m fairly certain you’ll find some items that would be great for color sorting. My toddler loves this color sorting busy bag with colorful buttons.
Try this activity with your…
For this super simple busy bag I gathered several clean peanut butter jar lids. You could easily use whatever small containers you have on hand. Egg cartons and muffin tins work very well, too.
I choose to use this busy bag to sort colored buttons. To make the process easier for Eliya, 2 1/2 years old, I taped one button into the middle of the overturned lids. This gives her an easily recognizable starting point for sorting the rest of the buttons (here are some colorful plastic buttons you could use). You could also tape a small piece of colored paper to the inside of the containers.
Then I placed the lids and a large handful of buttons into the zip-top bag. I made sure there was roughly the same number of buttons for each color.
After she’s used the buttons for awhile I can easily switch out the objects for something new.
Click the link below to download this free printable busy bag label.
Color Sorting Busy Bag
In what other simple ways do you help your children identify colors? Leave us a comment below.
I love all of your ideas for busy bags. Thanks for sharing at Mom’s Library!
My Little Mister loves sorting activities. Thanks for linking up at Mom’s Library.
Julie
I’ve been running errands all day and came home with buttons I found on clearance at wal-mart. They only had 3 colors so we won’t be doing a whole lot of color sorting but ours came in several different sizes so we will size sorting, sequencing and patterning with the different colors and sizes. We will also string them on a shoelace 🙂
I love all these busy bag activities! Thanks for sharing. I’m wondering, how do you get your child started with these? I know my son would not do much more than dump out the items unless I’m present. Any signs of readiness that I should look for that he can do these on his own?
How old is your son? The earliest our children were ready for this type of busy bag was 2 years old. Before that we used sensory bins for exploration play instead of play with specific goals. For example a shoe box sizes plastic bin filled with pom-poms, ice cube tray, measuring cups, spoons, small bowls, etc. Our kids still love playing with their pom-pom sensory bin. Just make sure your child isn’t in the puts-everything-in-their-mouth stage 🙂
All of our children started using busy bags by playing with the materials with us. We still complete new busy bags together most of the time. After 2 or 3 times they are usually ready to play independently.
I love the simplicity of this idea. Plus, picking up buttons give some great fine motor practice. Thanks for all of your amazing busy bag ideas!
Yes, buttons are great tools for fine motor skills…and I’ve never met a young child who didn’t like playing with buttons!