Looking for ways to make learning fun for your toddlers? Give their playtime a spot of color with our removable color coding dots. There’s an unlimited number of ways to use these stickers in projects to help teach your kids how to sort, identify shapes and process numbers. It might seem simple for grown-ups but the basic action of placing a label improves fine motor skills like peeling, pinching and accurate hand-eye coordination.
To help you get started, we’ve organized a few quick ideas that will improve color recognition, fine motor skills and shape identification. All of these fun activities for toddlers can be set up in moments with dot stickers, poster paper, construction paper and painter’s tape. But also feel free to use these ideas as a springboard to create your own clever activities.
Color matching activities for toddlers
Create train cars by lining up construction paper on a wall with painter’s tape and round labels to set up a basic color matching game. Give your toddlers a sheet of dot labels and have them sort the labels into each train car. Although sorting colors might seem like a simple activity, this is an intuitive and fun way for toddlers to identify similar characteristics and make decisions.
You can also attach construction paper to the sides of a cardboard box to add a 3-dimensional aspect to color matching. This throws in the challenge of having your toddlers pick up and reorient the box to try to find the right colors by remembering which sides they have already checked. Puzzles like these are an approachable way for toddlers to give their memory some exercise.
Fine motor skill activities for toddlers
Help your kids practice their fine motor skills by having them connect dots together. Draw lines on a sheet of poster paper with permanent markers and have them place stickers along the line with the same color. This is a simple way to practice color coordination and also improves their patience and concentration as they line up each sticker.
You can also have them practice their number identification skills at the same time by having them trace the outline of each digit. If they’re ready for a bigger challenge, mark random labels on the sheet with various digits and have your kids apply each label to the correct number. You could also have them attach the correct number of dot labels to each number with one label on “1” and two labels on “2” and so on.
Fun toddler activities for shape recognition
Shapes are an important concept for kids to learn since it helps them identify and organize the world around them. However, this also means that shapes can be one of the more difficult concepts for toddlers to comprehend. Try drawing the outlines of shapes on poster paper and having your kids place labels around the edges or filling in the shape.
Once they have enough practice, your kids can also try creating shapes themselves. A fun way to see how they are processing shapes is to watch how they place shapes together. Do they only draw shapes next to each other or do they know that shapes can be placed inside of other shapes? Labels and other art supplies are an excellent way for kids to explore these ideas.
Relaxation and creative time
But don’t forget that kids should have fun as well! Try giving your kids a piece of blank paper as a canvas and just give them some time to play. This is a great way for them to unwind but your kids might unknowingly continue practicing their shapes, numbers and color coordination all on their own. Although memorizing numbers and shapes is important, what’s even more crucial is that they discover their own ways to use these concepts every day.
Try using these ideas to make your own toddler activities at home. You can also scale these projects to be more complex as your kids get older or become more familiar with these concepts. Over time, you and your kids can also start using colored stickers to create board games, practice basic math and memorize patterns. Removable dot stickers are also useful around the house and won’t leave behind any residue.
Products used in this article:
- ½” Blue Removable Color Coding Labels (5050)
- 1-¼” Neon Green Removable Color Coding Labels (5498 / 94505)
- ¾” Assorted Neon Removable Color Coding Labels (5474)
- ¾” Assorted Removable Color Coding Labels (5472)
- ¾” Assorted See Through Removable Color Coding Labels (5473)
- Marks-A-Lot™ Black Permanent Markers (7888)
- Marks-A-Lot Assorted Large Markers (24800)
