Sorting is such an important skill for our toddlers and preschoolers to learn and engage in. When our littles are sorting, they are noticing similarities and differences. As they get older, sorting skills will help in daily life as well as math and literacy. Sorting a variety of objects can also help enhance our little's vocabulary and language skills. Colors, shape, and size are just a few of the talking points when it comes to sorting with your toddlers. You can get into specifics and talk about different animals, cars, sports, foods. The list goes on!
As I was driving to take my littles to the park, I was coming up with a list of objects you could sort at home. I started off with a few learning and sensory tools we use and then as I began thinking of all the "things" we use in our daily life the list just kept expanding and expanding. You can literally sort anything! Here is the list I came up with :)
1. Buttons - these fun buttons on Amazon come in 8 different colors and 8 different shapes for your little one to sort!
2. Erasers - Amazon has millions of different fun themed erasers for littles! Dollar stores and sections sometimes have them too!
3. Pom Poms - These Amazon pom poms and silicone muffin liners are the BEST for color sorting. Add some tongs or tweezers to work on fine motor skills.
4. Linking Cubes - Sort by color and practice fine motor skills while connecting cubes.
5. Pipe Cleaners - long or short, colors
6. Water Beads - water beads are great for sorting colors
7. Blocks and Magnet Tiles - shapes, size of shape, colors
8. Magnet Chips - A friend shared these magnet chips, and I thought they were so fun and HAD to get some! The boys love them. They are great for adding to sensory bins and for color sorting!
9. Food - This fridge sorting toy from learning resources is the cutest and has easily become one of their favorites. It comes with cards to practice sorting, counting, colors, etc.
If you don't have something like this, you could easily sort larger toy foods or even real food! Sort by color, size, whether you eat it or drink it. There are so many options!
11. Colored Clothespins or popsicle sticks - buy already colored clothespins or use a marker to color your own clothespins!
12. Noodles - Sort by noodle size, types of noodles
13. Cars - big or small, color, type of car or truck
14. Animals - Does the animal live on land, in the water, or air. Big or small. Spots or no spots. Wings or no wings. We did a fun bug sorting activity that way! Check out our download here >>> https://www.teachertoboymom.com/post/bugs-bugs-bugs
Many ways to mix animal sorting up!
15. Stickers - dot stickers are the best for doing some simple color sorting! You could buy themed stickers and do a variety of sorting as well.
16. Shapes- Grab our shape sorting download or create your own with markers and construction paper. Sort by the shape itself, by it's size, color, or how many sides!
17. Money - real or play money. Sort by coin or dollar amount (pennies, nickels, $1, $5, etc.) Or sort coins vs. dollars.
18. Upper and Lowercase Letters - magnetic letters would work great for this. Uppercase letters on fridge, lowercase letters on dishwasher! Or make two different groups on the floor or in containers :)
19. Cards - Playing Cards, Phase 10, Uno - sort by colors or sort by the number on the card
20. Construction Paper - different colored papers, make shapes, make long and short strips
Twenty different things you probably have around your house, and I guarantee you could come up with twenty more :)
Make your sorting into a sensory bin. Add a base - water, rice, beans, sand, play dough, bubbles, etc. and gave your little some tools to practice fine motor skills as they sort their objects!
Give one of these a try and begin talking about the similarities and differences. Work on categorizing. Talk about colors, shapes, and sizes! Sorting is such a fun, hands on learning experience for your little ones. It doesn't have to be fancy to be purposeful!
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