Color Matching Busy Bag with Clothespins

My preschooler has been hard at work learning her colors and building her fine-motor skills, so this clothespin color matching busy bag is perfect for her. There are lots of opportunities for her to practice both skills. I made this as part of our “Learn with Your Craft Stash” series. I’m so excited about all of the great learning ideas that have been shared and I’m looking forward to the next two weeks with even more ideas for using our craft stash for learning!

Materials needed for the Color Matching Busy Bag:

Small clothespins

Small popsicle sticks

Thin rainbow washi tape

To prepare:

For each color, put tape on 2 craft sticks and 3 clothes pins.

I found that, on the clothespins, tucking the tape over the ends of the clothespin on the back and front helped the tape to stay more secure.

This creates two different activities, but I stored them in the bag together so that I didn’t have to make duplicate craft sticks. If you want to store them in two separate bags, do an extra set of craft sticks. You can then store the clothespins and one set of craft sticks in one bag and two sets of the craft sticks in a second bag.

For the clothespin activity, have your child match the clothespins to the correct color of craft stick. Three clothespins per color worked out perfectly to fit on the craft sticks.

The second activity is a matching game for the craft sticks. You can choose to do this two ways.

With a younger child, place the craft sticks face up and have them find the matching colors with your assistance.

For a slightly older/more skilled child, place the craft sticks color-side down and play a game of Memory to find the matching colors.

For more learning activities using clothespins, check out these great ideas!

Mrs. P’s Specialties has lots of great ideas for using clothespins to learn! I especially love the big/little tip!