Warning: This is not your average color matching activity! Preschoolers will beg to do this brilliant twist on regular old color sorting over and over again as they practice color and visual perception, fine motor skills and cutting skills.
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First, I printed out the color matching activity on cardstock paper. Cardstock is a bit thicker than normal printer paper so it is easier for your young child to hold, manipulate and work with cardstock when cutting out the pieces.
Then I cut out the white area between each of the squares.
A craft knife would have made this part super quick but, since I didn’t have one, I pushed one edge of my scissor through the middle of each white square and then cut around the border to remove the white space.
Ta-da! All cut out. Next, I cut out a piece of contact paper that was the same size of the paper. I removed the paper backing and stuck it to the back of the color matching activity.
Now, when I flipped it around, the area between the squares were perfectly sticky.
I cut out the strips of color for easy preschool cutting practice and invited my daughters (ages 6 and 2) over to join me.
The girls couldn’t wait to get started!
I handed over a pair of age-appropriate safety scissors and laid out the strips of paper. My six year old loved helping with this part and my two year old was thrilled to work on her cutting skills too!
I sat with my toddler and monitored her closely while she used the scissors to ensure that she was cutting correctly and away from her fingers. I told the kids to cut shapes like squares, rectangles, triangles and anything else they wanted to try.
Then, they laid out all of the cut pieces and began color matching.
My kids thoroughly enjoyed this activity. The sticky contact paper made the project almost mess free and, was so engaging, that the kids didn’t realize all of the math concepts they were working on including sorting, comparing and shapes.
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Ready to play?! Click the blue button below to grab your free color matching activity and then hop over and try out ice color mixing – an awesome science and art project in one!