Therapy Tip: Color Sorting Game

Welcome to Therapy Thursday! This is the day that I share a tip based upon my experience as a pediatric speech-language pathologist and a mother of a child with special needs.

Today's tip is:

A Color Sorting Game

Most of my work is with toddlers, so teaching colors is often a skill I address at some point in treatment. On a recent post, I shared just one idea of how I integrate colors in my treatment approach. This is activity is different in that you can target colors and vocabulary at the same time.

Preparation:
1. Pick 2 colors that you want to target. For this example, I have chosen red and green for Christmas.
2. Collect 2 clear plastic containers.
3. Stick a green label on one container and a red label on the other container. I just cut out a piece of green/red construction paper and tape it to one side of the container. This marks the containers for the children to use for the game.
4. Next, find items in your colors. For green, I picked a tiny bowl, train, plastic bug, pipe cleaner, and dinosaur. For red, I chose a train, ribbon, twizzlers, a plastic ring, and a red heart. Generally, I pick 8-10 items total because that is about all the attention I can maintain for the toddlers I work with.
5. Place all of these items in a colored bag that will hide the items. This adds some mystery to the game.

Now we are ready....

To play:

-Pull one item out of the bag.
-Tell the child what it is or have them tell you what it is.

-Show the children the two colors on the labels. Ask the child if the item is green or red. Sometimes, I hold the object next to the color label, so they can see if it's the same color as the paper or not.

-Place the object in the right container and repeat. Help the child as needed.
-When all items have been sorted, I usually dump them in a pile and let the kids have a few minutes to play with them. This allows time to practice language skills (2 word phrases) functionally while still working on colors.

Possible Therapy Targets:

-Matching colors.

-Labeling colors.

-Phrases (Green dinosaur, red train)

-Naming Objects (train, ribbon)

Therapy Thursday is for educational purposes only and not intended as therapeutic advice.