Simple Fun DIY Sorting Games for Toddlers to Make at Home
Craft + Games + Learning = A whole lot of fun!
In this post I have a super simple craft activity that will give you lots of games you can play with your little ones!
The aim is to encourage number and colour recognition, and for preschoolers, some practice writing numbers and much more!
How to Make your Toilet Paper Roll Sorting Activity
Supplies Needed
- Toilet Paper Rolls (we did 9 but you can do less or expand the number depending on the age of your child)
- Paints in lots of different colours & brushesÂ
- Glitter & Glue (this is optional if you want to keep mess to a minimum – you could use number stickers or a marker instead)
- Scissors
- Magnetic Tape (optional if you want to do the fridge games)
How to Make your Toilet Paper Roll Sorters
Paint
Paint each of your toilet paper rolls in a variety of colours – if you have a younger child who is only just beginning to recognise colours then using only a few colours may work best, if your little one is a bit older you could use different shades of the same colours as I have done on mine. Leave to dry – this doesn’t take long if you’re out in the sun!
Cut Out
I recommend cutting out the section at the bottom first as this makes adding the numbers afterwards easier and you don’t risk cutting off your numbers 🙂 You need to make sure your cut out section is big enough for whatever it is that you want to put through it (cars/balls etc) If you wanted to, you could make it larger than mine and do the same cut out on the back and you could drive cars through the tube too
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Number
Next you need to number your toilet paper rolls – for this part I wanted to add a bit of sparkle (!) and so I used a glue stick to draw the number on and then sprinkled glitter over it – although this was effective, I did have to go around the numbers with a marker to make sure they were easily recognisable. If you don’t want to use glitter, then foam sticker numbers or a marker pen work just as well!
DIY Colour Sorting for Toddlers
Now you’ve got your tubes all ready made, it’s time to start playing! Here are just a few ways that you could incorporate colour sorting into your play.
Toy Cars
We had great fun finding cars to match all the tubes – my sons collection is quite large and so we probably had enough to make a rainbow of cars! You can get your child to match the cars up to the tubes and drive them into the tube or tunnel depending on how you have made them. Or you could mix it up and ask your child to drive the red car into a yellow tube. You could ask your child to tell you which colour tubes have cars in them or ask them to take away the green cars – there are many ways to play – it’s all about recognising the colours and having fun!
Pom Poms
Probably the most versatile craft item out there – the humble pom pom is such a great resource for play! Try sorting your pom poms into colours and dropping them through the top of the tube – you could then practice counting how many of each colour you have too – try rolling pom poms into the tubes or blowing them in is fun too!
Toilet Paper Rolls
The beauty of the toilet paper roll tubes is that you don’t actually need to use anything with them, you can just use them as a stand alone activity, working on learning the colours, lining them up, piling them high, talking all the while about what colour you are using – you could lay them on their sides and roll them down a slight slope to see which colour wins!
DIY Toddler Number Recognition Activities
We took our toilet paper rolls outside with some marbles (be extra careful with young children and marbles) and had some fun rolling the marbles into the tubes in the sunshine 🙂
Number Games
You could shout out a number and see if your child can roll it into the tube – it is quite tricky so alternatively for younger children you could roll the ball in and shout out what number it is – you could even have a chalk board or just a piece of paper to write down the numbers you hit – this is a great way for preschool aged children to start learning to write their numbers in a fun way – have a go also at adding numbers up if this is something your child can do
Number Recognition and Fine Motor Skills Games
We put self-adhesive magnetic tape on the back of our toilet paper rolls so that we could arrange them on the fridge – this is such a fun game and the combinations you can try are endless!
Fridge Games
This is not only a great activity for colour and number recognition but also for developing those fine motor skills! We used pom poms and dropped them down the tubes in lots of different combinations – we split the tubes two ways and had to guess which number tube the pom pom would come out of, we also used a variety of objects as ‘catchers’ including jars and wellies 🙂 (the pom poms tend to escape under the fridge if you don’t have anything!) There are so many different ways to do this and this doesn’t have to be on the fridge, you could use a radiator too or any magnetic surface you can find in your home!
Let the Games Begin!
This simple craft can be used in so many different ways – I have suggested a few here but feel free to get creative and come up with your own games and activities!
This simple activity focuses on:
Colour Recognition
Number Recognition
Counting
Fine Motor Skills
And most importantly a whole lot of FUN!
Enjoy 🙂
