Make a colour sorting fine motor toy using coloured matchsticks to sort and drop! Great for little hands to develop that pincer grasp and, concentration and hand:eye co-ordination, as well as begin to differentiate and sort by colour.
I made this very simple game for Miss 2 (although her older sisters loved it too!) using an empty plastic food container and some coloured matchsticks.
I punctured tiny holes into the top of the lid using a toothpick, then widened them a little using the pointed end of a thin paintbrush, until they were just a tiny bit larger than the matchsticks to pass through.
I used Sharpie markers to colour around each hole to match to the matchsticks and set it up ready to play!
She knew what to do and is particularly keen on all posting and dropping type games at the moment. She started by pushing them through any hole she could find and after a while I showed her that the colours were the same between the sticks and the holes.
She was then able to sort them out and match them to the correct colours by sight, correcting herself on occasion too.
The action of picking up the sticks and pushing them through the holes required lots of concentration and a tight pincer grasp between finger and thumb, so lots of fine motor exercises were happening while she played!
This is such a simple resource to make and then store in the play cupboard or on a low shelf for self-serve for the little ones.
*Obviously do not leave this sort of toy with children who still like to mouth small objects*
What they are learning as they play:
physical: fine motor control and coordination, pincer grasp, hand:eye coordination
maths: sorting and matching by one criteria (colour)
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See our Fine Motor Activity post here
Where did you get the color sticks at?
Really cute idea!
The small color matchsticks can be found at Dollarama in the craft isle
They exchange a history then there is root cause they were hired altogether.