My preschooler loves to play with our frog and bear counters to practice color and size sorting! Sorting and separating rainbow counters
The ones I have are also beads, so my daughter loves stringing them into a necklace. We took turns making a pond full of colorful lily pads that needed the right colored frogs on them. She asked to practice color and size sorting again and again!
Color sorting is the most obvious way to sort for a preschooler. We've already matched colorful shoes along with Pete the Cat! As I presented the different colored "lily pads" for my daughter to sort the frogs onto, she quickly got in to the challenge. I think I'll include this in the Rainbow Busy Box next time I set it up for my little one.
Once I pointed out the differences in sizes, Strawberry also loved sorting them out by size. Because of her creative mind, small and medium became "babies" and "big brothers and sisters," and the large frogs were the mamas and papas. My daughter loved to put the mamas and babies together. I had to make larger sized lily pads so the whole family could live together in our room-sized pond.
My older child wanted to play too, but he wanted to incorporate a game into our color and size sorting. My daughter insisted it be her Christmas present game: Spot It! Alphabet
As I said, I love these frogs. I believe Learning Resources stopped making the frogs, as I can only refer you to them secondhand on Amazon
However, so if you are looking for some small rainbow fun, you can also play with the Learning Resources Three Bear Family Rainbow Counters
For my older child, I also made some simple pattern cards to use with the rainbow frogs. Patterning is an important skill for developing mathematical thinking skills and critical thinking in general.
Again, bears or any other rainbow counters would work well with these same cards! You can get the pattern cards in my TPT store or my shop.
Here are other ideas for using rainbow counters with kids of all ages:
See more rainbow activities on my blog and in my shop! Then, scroll down for a round-up of other rainbow counter activities.
There is stage each of my kids has enjoyed, between two and three, when they truly loved Pete the Cat’s I Love My White Shoes! Since it is so fun to sing the song and toddlers are just starting to recognize colors, it’s a perfect stage for beginning color recognition and color matching. Toddler Color
Read MoreToday we were all about rainbows! My toddler “Rainbow” busy box includes a cut-and-paste craft, color sorts, rainbow books, and other fun items related to rainbows! My main activity for my toddler was a simple cut-and-paste rainbow color sort craft using paint chip squares and images in all colors of the rainbow. This is such a
Read MoreMy preschooler loves to play with our frog and bear counters to practice color and size sorting! Sorting and separating rainbow counters or rainbow bear counters helps preschoolers with color and shape discrimination, and playing with physical counters or beads encourages fine motor skills development. The ones I have are also beads, so my daughter loves stringing
Read MoreThe Color Kittens by Margaret Wise Brown is a simple Little Golden Book about two cats, Brush and Hush, who love to paint with colors. There is a hint of fairy tale in their story (as it is the explanation of how the world has so many colors) and the text has a pleasant but
Read MoreI’m quickly finding that my preschooler needs hands on interactive fun. When she gets home from preschool it’s a little bit before lunch time, so without an activity, she’ll whine until the food is served. This week’s favorite activity was a color mixing fine motor water activity using food coloring and a kid-sized dropper.
Read MoreThis month’s Story Corner Blog Hop is about Spring, and while I have a huge number of favorite spring books I could share about (I may in the coming weeks), the book I kept coming back to is one that my daughter has recently fallen in love with: Lift-the-Flap Colors. Because spring is simply packed
Read MoreThere is stage each of my kids has enjoyed, between two and three, when they truly loved Pete the Cat’s I Love My White Shoes! Since it is so fun to sing the song and toddlers are just starting to recognize colors, it’s a perfect stage for beginning color recognition and color matching. Toddler Color
Read MoreToday we were all about rainbows! My toddler “Rainbow” busy box includes a cut-and-paste craft, color sorts, rainbow books, and other fun items related to rainbows! My main activity for my toddler was a simple cut-and-paste rainbow color sort craft using paint chip squares and images in all colors of the rainbow. This is such a
Read MoreThe Color Kittens by Margaret Wise Brown is a simple Little Golden Book about two cats, Brush and Hush, who love to paint with colors. There is a hint of fairy tale in their story (as it is the explanation of how the world has so many colors) and the text has a pleasant but
Read MoreI’m quickly finding that my preschooler needs hands on interactive fun. When she gets home from preschool it’s a little bit before lunch time, so without an activity, she’ll whine until the food is served. This week’s favorite activity was a color mixing fine motor water activity using food coloring and a kid-sized dropper.
Read MoreThis month’s Story Corner Blog Hop is about Spring, and while I have a huge number of favorite spring books I could share about (I may in the coming weeks), the book I kept coming back to is one that my daughter has recently fallen in love with: Lift-the-Flap Colors. Because spring is simply packed
Read More