It was freezing and windy yesterday, so we decided to make it feel like Spring inside with this Clothespin Flower Color Matching Activity!
This was an easy to make activity that was fun for both my toddler and my older son. My daughter is currently learning the color names so this was a simple way to talk about different colors, practice matching colors, and strengthen her pincer grasp (which is helpful when learning to hold a pencil and pick up little things)!
Materials Needed: foam flowers, foam scraps, glue, scissors, and clothespins
To make the color matching clips we just glued some foam scraps to the top of the clothespins. My daughter was so anxious to get started matching that the glue wasn't even dry yet!
While she clipped we talked about the colors. She mostly just matched and clipped while I occasionally said something like "wow! you matched the pink flower with the pink clip." As we worked she picked up on a few more colors than she already knew... so that was progress. She currently only knows maybe two colors consistently.
I also started out needing to help her pinch (my fingers on top of hers), but once she got the feel for what her fingers needed to do then she didn't need my help any more and was so proud that she was pinching by herself!!
Later in the day once the toddler was asleep, my 5 year old found our activity and wanted to play. He matched and clipped the flowers, counted them, and then stood them up to make a "garden."
He accidentally discovered that he could use them like dominoes and put them in a row, knock one down, and then all of them would subsequently fall down. He was SO EXCITED about this new version of the game. Definitely try it with your kids too. He wants to do it with the toddler first thing in the morning.
Tomorrow we may add some letter stickers to these and turn them into an ABC or name flower garden.
How else do you like to use clothespin for learning?
What a great idea for matching colors and enhancing fine motor, pincher grasp concepts. Thank you for sharing.
I love this idea! I hope to have a flower theme next month, and I will have to remember this one! We love to oldie, but goodie, of clipping the clothespins around the edge of a bowl or jar. Another fun thing we do is to letter the clothespins from A-Z, with uppercase on one side, and lowercase on the other, and then clip them in order on a hanger. 🙂
Awesome for color matching and fine motor! Love it! And adorable too!
So adorable! Great for colors and for fine motor!
Awesome activity, Kristina! It's so attractive and great for developing a number of skills! I pinned your post to my Kids' Spring Showers Pinterest board.
I also love all the free printables that are available for count-and-clip and beginning sounds activities like the April showers activities I published at prekandksharing.blogspot.com/2012/04/montessori-inspired-april-showers.html
Thanks for popping by AND for sharing my post AND for sharing your great resource too. Heading to check out the post at prekandksharing now.