Free Color Sorting Mats with Spinners

Color Activities for Preschoolers

LEARNING COLORS GAMES

HAVE LOTS OF FUN LEARNING COLORS WITH EDUCATIONAL GAMES THAT TEACH! KIDS NEED HANDS-ON PRACTICE AND MULTIPLE OPPORTUNITIES TO SPOT AND NAME COLORS.

Colors are everywhere! It’s often one of the first learning experiences we give to children when they are quite young. “What color is your shirt? Look at the black dog? Where is your red block?”

It’s not long before kids begin to recognize and categorize those colors. Learning colors with worksheets isn’t nearly as effective as giving kids a color learning activity that is hands-on and fun.

I included two different spinner mats for differentiation. The paint splatter mat has three primary colors: red/blue/yellow. The finger paint spinner in this game features: red/yellow/blue/green/orange/purple.

Kids will develop fine motor muscles as they spin the spinner, then they will practice naming the color they land on, and finally they will match the color by choosing the appropriate block.

You can keep the free printable activity novel in your child’s eyes, by switching out objects to sort each time she uses it.

In addition to learning to sort by color, you can pose additional questions to young learners to get them making deeper connections with any learning colors activity:

• Can you find something that is blue/red/etc.?
• What is your favorite color? Why?
• What colors do you see in nature?
• What colors match/don’t match? Why?

What Can Preschoolers Learn While Playing a Color Sorting Game?

PRESCHOOL COLORS GAMES

PRESCHOOL COLOR RECOGNITION WORKSHEETS FOR PRESCHOOL ARE GOOD SOMETIMES. BUT, SOMETIMES THE MOST EFFECTIVE LEARNING TAKES PLACE WITHOUT PUTTING CRAYON TO PAPER.

Kids will love spinning and choosing a bead/object to place on the mat. You might even vary the texture (pom poms) or size of the object to further motor develop as appropriate.

Kids will learn all the primary colors with this simple activity:

• Red
• Yellow
• Blue

I’ve also included three secondary colors:

• Orange
• Green
• Purple

Why Is It Important For Kids To Learn Colors?

Children are naturally curious about everything around them. Learning about colors with puzzles, games, and activities helps them understand the world a little bit better.

Background Knowledge

Color vocabulary is important! Most toddlers start by learning one color and then refer to everything as that color! It takes time and experience to learn that each color has its own name.

Describe

Think of how many times we use color to describe something. When there are two of the same object, but different colors, it makes a world of difference!

Connect with Nature

Identifying colors in pictures and then transferring the knowledge to things that are in the real world helps kids make important connections with the world, nature, and their lives.

Compare/Contrast

Learning color characteristics helps kids sort, compare and contrast with ease. Those are important skills for both reading and math instruction moving forward.

How to Make The Paint Theme Color Sorting Mats

To Prep:

Print and laminate the sorting mats at a time when children are occupied with something else.

Poke a small hole in the center of each spinner with a knife or the tip of a pair of scissors.

Push the paper fasteners into the hole leaving a small gap on the front of the page, so that the paper clip can spin freely. Open the backing of the paper fasteners and secure in place with the tape.

Place the paper clips around the paper fasteners to complete the spinners.

To Play:

Spin the spinners and place an item with the matching color onto the matching ‘paint’. There is no ‘finish’, so you can play as long as your child is content to continue or you can give a set ending by limiting the amount of beads you provide.

We’re going to be playing with this one for a long time!

Extend the Activity

Color Mixing

Learning how primary colors mix to make secondary colors is so fun! Take this paint theme to the next level by mixing actual paint to create the three secondary colors from the three primary.

Custom Sort

While the spinner game has kids placing beads on the mat by color, you could tweak it so they spin, place a bead, and then in addition they place another bead in a column labeled primary/secondary.

Real Life

Play the game as described, but challenge children to find an object in real life that is the same color as the spinner landed on. If they can’t repeat objects, this could get tricky and will really hone visual acuity skills.

Color Sorting Activities:

• Rainbow Color Sorting Sensory Bin
• Space Theme Color Matching & Sorting Pack
• Fruit Color Matching & Sorting Games

Even More Colors Activities:

More Color Activities from the #TeachECE Team:

• Rhyming Activity: Crayon Color Chant 
• Roll a Color Alphabet Game
• “I See a Rainbow” Book-Making 
• Color Insect DIY Book for Writing Practice 
• Mouse Paint: Learning About Colors in Preschool
• Colors Snap Cube Pattern Matching 
• What Color Am I? Kindergarten Guessing Game 
• Shades and Tints 
• Color Surprise Game