Grab some tissues and stickers – you gotta make a color sorting cube

What if a sorting activity didn’t have to be stationary? What if we could make it full body and full fun? That’s the basis of the color sorting cube.

RELATED: Curious how I teach my kids? Check out Playing Preschool – my 190-day at-home activities program.

A little ditty about the power of sorting

Sorting activities are some of my easy activities.

What looks like such a simple and straight forward skill is actually incredibly complex for a toddler or preschooler.

When a child is sorting, they are categorizing information, organizing data, and judging attributes. It’s a whole lot of learning involved here.

And the best part about sorting? It’s a skill children use for a very long time. Kids sort in math, they sort information when they read, and they sort science materials and data.

We use sorting in so many subjects and aspects of life. This is one majorly important skill.

How do you make a color sorting cube?

Materials:

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• Tissue Box
• Construction Paper
• Dot Stickers (THE BEST)
• Packing tape

I grabbed a tissue box as my “cube” and glued four sheets of colored paper on the sides of it (each matching a color of dot stickers).

On the other two sides, I put black paper so those would be the “blank” sides of the activity.

To help keep this cube safe from toddler hands, I added some clear packing tape over the top to laminate the cube so to speak.

How the color sorting cube was full body

To put the correct colored sticker on the right sides of the cube, my son (2.5) needed to twist, turn, rotate, and maneuver the cube.

Immediately, this activity changed from him just placing stickers on a simple surface to one where he is dramatically rotating the cube to find the correct next color.

The hand-eye coordination, problem solving, dexterity – oh man, there is a whole lot of motor skill goodness in this little cube!

RELATED: Looking for more fine motor skill activities? Check out the OT Tool Box.

Once he finished…

He set it all on the fireplace. He told me very specifically “I gonna come back to this.”

AND HE DID.

We kept it on the fireplace place with a few more sheets of dot stickers and he’d move to play with this just like if it was a regular toy.

How’s that for a DIY win?

What an easy toddler activity to make!

This was such an easy activity to through together for my son – the learning, the moving, the independent play – this color sorting cube had it all!

Will you make a color sorting cube?