Pinch and create colorful chains

Pinch and create colorful chains

Gather the following material to create a handful of activities that children will readily adopt.  

• Color coding labels (adhesive circles)
• Paperclips (primary colors)
• Jumbo wooden craft sticks
• Colorful wooden clothespins (primary colors)

To begin, press a series of adhesive circles on each wooden craft stick.

Invite children to set a clothespin of the corresponding color on each circle. For example, have them set a red clothespin on the red circle, a blue clothespin on the blue circle... Encourage them to name the colors as they work.

To change things up a little, you could set the clothespins in a tiny opaque bag and let children take turns pulling a clothespin out of the bag.

This can easily be turned into a game. Every time a child picks a clothespin, he must set it on a circle of the corresponding color on his craft stick. If a child does not have a circle of the corresponding color that doesn’t have a clothespin on it, he puts it back in the bag. The first child who covers all the circles on his stick with a clothespin wins.

Invite children to use paperclips to create colorful chains, respecting the color sequence on their craft stick. Once again, this can be presented as a game if you add the paperclips to an opaque bag and have children take turns picking one.

You can choose to have children form their chain once they have all the necessary paperclips or, if you prefer, require that they collect them in the correct order and build their chain as they go.  

This is a great fine motor skills exercise and, as a bonus, it fosters color recognition!

Leave all the material in your manipulation area. You can challenge children to line up more than one craft stick on the table to increase the level of difficulty and encourage them to create a longer color chain. This is a great calm activity for older children who wake up before the end of naptime.

Have fun!

Patricia-Ann Morrison