Montessori Color Match

by Meghan

Sharing is caring!

Last week, we shared one of our favorite activities from a Montessori Play Group we attended when Big M was 18 months old… Montessori Animal Match.  This week we are sharing Big M’s other favorite activity from the play group… Montessori Color Match.

Montessori Color Match - A Simple Color Game for Toddlers


Playing Montessori Color Match

Order and ‘exactness,’ or matching, are two of the natural human tendencies as defined by Maria Montessori.  Children have a natural tendency to discern exactness, and create order in their little worlds.  At the Montessori playgroup we attended, Big M (then 18 months) participated in a series of activities based on these tendencies.  One that I found to be super simple, while engaging her the most was based on color matching.  Primary colored place mats were laid out on the floor to collect objects of matching color.

The best thing about this activity is it requires little to no preparation.  For our at home version, the only supplies you need are colored construction paper, tape and whatever multi-colored toys you already have at home!

Montessori Color Match - Minimal Supplies Required

Supplies:

Colored construction paper
Painter’s tape
Multi-colored toys to match paper

Cost:  Less than $5
Preparation Time: Less than 5 minutes
Clean-Up Time: Less than 5 minutes

The first time we played, I laid out the sheets of paper on the floor, and grabbed one large pom pom to match each of the pieces of colored construction paper.  We named the colors together, and I showed her how to put the blue pom pom on the blue sheet, and the green pom pom on the green sheet.  After that, she took over!  When she finished with the pom poms, she pulled out her ice cream cones that came in all different colors – she only paused for a second when she got to the chocolate one, since we didn’t have any brown construction paper!

IMG_3400-001

After the first time, we stored the colored construction paper and pom poms in the lower drawer of our entertainment center (pictured below), where Big M could easily access them any time she wanted to play.  She would take out the paper, lay it out on the floor, and begin collecting colored toys to sort.  Whenever she runs out of toys, she loves to run around the house finding things to match her colored papers.  It is so much fun to watch her at work!

Lil’ M’s Turn to Play

My husband has recently been concerned that Lil’ M (age 2) is color blind because she says EVERY THING is red.  So I decided to play this game again with her… good news is – she is most definitely not color blind, she just doesn’t always name the right color for everything yet!

With her, since she has a more limited attention span than her older sister, I started with just one color first, and let her find objects around the room that matched.

Montessori Color Match - Finding Red

She caught on VERY quickly, and immediately wanted more colored paper to match all her toys.

Montessori Color Match - Sort a Group of Colored Objects

This can be played with a a few sets of multi-colored toys, or for more active toddlers, like Lil’ M, it was great to just let her run around the room and find colored toys that matched herself.

Montessori Color Match - A Fun Color Game for Toddlers

About Montessori

For those not already familiar, Montessori is an educational approach created by an Italian physician and educator, Maria Montessori, at the turn of the 20th century.  She emphasized independence, freedom within limits and respect for a child’s natural development, psychologically, physically and socially.  The Montessori model has two primary principles: first, children will naturally engage in self-constructive ways with their environments; and second, young children have an instinctual path of psychological development.  She believed that children, left to freely choose and interact in a constructively prepared environment, would naturally and spontaneously interact for optimal development.

What I take this to mean is I should strive to create a play space that provides toys that inspire imagination and creativity, where play objects are easily accessible by children and used with limited intervention by me, the parent or facilitator.  Typically, when I introduce a new activity in their room, I do a little demonstration, then leave them to their own devices.  Our Montessori Color Match is just such an activity.


If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out some of our other favorite toddler activities: Splat! Pollock-Inspired Art for Toddlers and Montessori Animal Match.  You can find all of these, as well as our favorites from around the web, on our Toddlers and Montessori Inspired Fun boards on Pinterest.

Love it? Share it on Pinterest – Pin This!Montessori Color Match - An Easy Game for Toddlers

Sharing is caring!

13 comments

More to love on Playground Parkbench

13 comments

Amy January 4, 2017 - 2:55 pm

Love this!

Reply
Meghan January 5, 2017 - 8:29 am

Thanks! I need to start setting it up again for our little guy!

Reply
Life-Size Bunny Hop Board Game ⋆ Playground Parkbench February 25, 2016 - 8:10 am

[…] and New Year, she easily logged 10 games a day with my Mom. It’s also been a great means of working on color recognition with Lil’ M. But facing yet another cold day stuck indoors, I decided to turn their new […]

Reply
Top 10 Color Matching Activities for Toddlers ⋆ Playground Parkbench February 19, 2016 - 8:13 am

[…] Montessori Color Match | Playground Parkbench […]

Reply
50+ Affordable Math Manipulatives ⋆ Playground Parkbench February 4, 2016 - 9:31 pm

[…] Montessori Color Match | Playground Parkbench […]

Reply
Sorting Sight Words with Valentine SweetTarts ⋆ Playground Parkbench February 4, 2016 - 1:48 pm

[…] and preschooler at the same time.  This one was originally set up for my toddler to work on her color sorting and identification, and to prevent my preschooler from taking over, I made a few modifications to create a unique, […]

Reply
Deck the Crown with Jewels: A Sorting & Dice Game for Preschool - Playground Parkbench July 27, 2015 - 9:03 pm

[…] you have played with your preschool-aged children?  If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy Montessori Color Match and Sorting Seashells – A Summer Math Activity.  Be sure to check out all 31 days of Cool […]

Reply
How to Stock Your Craft Closet - Playground Parkbench February 25, 2015 - 9:11 pm

[…] poms – in multiple sizes and colors.  We use them for fine motor skill challenges, sorting, color matching, crafting, and kindness jar filling.  Craft stores often sell holiday color assortments (like red, […]

Reply
Nicole Schwarz February 19, 2015 - 10:16 pm

So fun and so simple to do too! I need to remember this in a few months (I have a 10 month old) Thanks for sharing.

Reply
Matea February 19, 2015 - 6:32 am

Nice play idea! I like it for it’s simplicity and affordability!

Reply
PGPBMeghan February 19, 2015 - 7:27 am

Me too… and we’ve done similar activities with shapes (just drew outline of shapes on paper) and now with Big M, do letters too (draw letter on paper and find objects that start with that letter).

Reply
Matea February 19, 2015 - 5:53 pm

Great idea. I will start with letters soon.

Reply

Leave a Comment

* By using this form you agree with the storage and handling of your data by this website.

REGENERATE
shares