Colour sorting is a great learning activity for toddlers and preschoolers and it can be adapted to make it easier or harder depending on their ability. While you can buy specialist kit for colour sorting there are lots of items you will already have around the house and I think LEGO DUPLO works really well. The new IKEA tableware colours are great for colour sorting, but alternative options are using different coloured pieces of paper or coloured sorting bowls. (Contains affiliate links)

How To Do The Colour Sorting Activity Beginner level - Age 18 months upwards

Choose DUPLO pieces which match the plates/ paper in colour and leave them in a pile for the child to put on the matching plate. This can be done from around 18 months because they only need to identify which pieces are the same colour, they don't need to be able to name the colour.

If they are just starting to learn the name of the colours it's a great opportunity to get them to practise: ask them to say the colour aloud each time they pick a piece up.

How To Make The Colour Sorting Activity Harder - Age 3 upwards

• Add in different shades of each colour. This means they need to think harder about which colours go together, especially with shades like turquoise and orange.
• Add in pieces that are multiple colours. This means they need to think about what colour plate the piece best matches.
• Add in pieces which don't match any colour plate. You can either have a discard pile for these or use them to prompt a discussion about which colours need to be mixed together to make them.
• Guess which plate has most pieces on and then count them to see if they were right.

Additional Activities

I find that once the DUPLO is out it generally leads to time spent playing with it and building things before it is put away so this is one of those activities where structured play leads to free play keeping children occupied for some time.