L’s current obsession is matching colors.  She is constantly showing me all of the things her food matches or telling me that different objects match my clothes.  I decided to follow the child to create the ultimate color matching work for her — a Color Scavenger Hunt.

This is a temporary work that I set up on our dining room table so N wouldn’t take the different objects or rip up the paper.  I taped down different colored papers and filled a basket with objects from her other works.

When L discovered this work after naptime, I showed her how to place each object on its matching paper.  L named each color as she worked and had a blast!  This works on language and sensorial skills — in L’s case, it was great for reinforcing the different shades of each color, since light green and dark green objects both ended up on the green paper together.

After she had sorted all of the objects by color, L put them all back into the basket and put them away on a reverse scavenger hunt.  This helps fulfill the toddler’s sense of order as she had to find the correct places for each object.

She could then fill up the basket with new objects to sort by color.  L loved this work and repeated it many times with different objects over two days before I put it away.  This one is definitely a winner!

I was limited by space in the colors of construction paper that I could lay out — L found that a bit confusing when she brought over a brown object, since there was no paper for brown!  Next time, I will be sure to work around the whole perimeter of the table so I can fit all of the colors.