Educational activities for toddlers do not have to be super detailed and complicated. Especially with younger toddlers, you don’t need to have a bunch of elements and steps – keep it simple and then add to it when they are ready. **This post may contain affiliate links. A small commission may be earned.**
When I first started doing toddler activities with my 2 year old I was constantly seeing these complicated activities or activities that I didn’t think she would even be able to do at her age. Honestly, it made me feel like my toddler was “behind” and that toddler activities had to be this elaborate set up.
Spoiler alert: BOTH ARE WRONG.
You do not have to set up this elaborate craft or activity for your toddler to be entertained for 5 minutes AND your activities don’t need to have colors, numbers, shapes, and letters all in the same activity.
You’ll hear me say it often but you can keep it simple! Stick to just ONE goal (colors, numbers, letters, shapes) at first and then you can add more later. Your toddler will be just as entertained, if not more, and will actually be able to do it by themselves.
When my daughter was 2 we started with a lot of color recognition activities. The first activity we ever did was a Color Sort with her toys. For this activity I gave her very little guidance and just let her go with it. She didn’t know the names of the colors, but she was able to sort a bunch of her toys (and kitchen items) into the different colors I laid out.
In my experience (as a toddler mom and former teacher), these activities are meant to be very low stakes. That means it doesn’t have to be perfect or even “successful.” My measure for success in these activities is my toddler having fun and being entertained.
I might try to guide her to doing the color sorting, but if she just wants to play with the items – that’s okay too. For example, we did the Pom Pom Color Cup (full activity directions at the bottom of the page) when she was 3. My intention for the activity was for her to place the correct colors and amount of pom poms in the cup. My toddler placed the correct colors but not numbers.
Initially, I modeled for her the “correct” way but it didn’t change the result. She still only cared about the colors. Instead of correcting her again, I just let her do it her way.
Low stakes. We’ll try again another time and see if she’s ready for it. But this way I’m not frustrated and she’s still having fun! The whole goal of these activities is for her to have some fun and for me to have a little break.
4 Color Recognition Activities
- Color Sort
This is one of the first color recognition activities I did with my toddler and you can do it several ways.
– Lay out several pieces of colored construction paper.
– In a bin collect several toys or random household items that are solid colors (in the same colors of the papers you laid out).
– Give the bin to your toddler and have them place the items on the matching colored paper.
If you’ve done this before you can have your toddler find the items/toys too!
If you don’t want to grab a bunch of toys, you can cut out various shapes and items from colored construction paper and have them organize those.
- Sticker Match
You can do this with a toilet paper roll, a piece of paper, or a cute design (I did it with Christmas lights for the holiday)
– On your piece of paper draw a design with a bunch of colored dots in it (make sure your colors match the stickers you have).
– Peel the back of the sticker paper off to make it easy for toddler to peel the individual stickers
– Have your toddler match the stickers to the colored dots
Our favorite stickers for these activities.
- Cereal Threading
We used colored cereal loops for this activity!
– Draw a jellyfish and place various colored pipe cleaners for the tentacles (make sure your pipe cleaners match the cereals you have)
– Have your toddler thread the cereal onto the matching pipe cleaner.
This is great for color recognition as well as hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills! If you don’t have colored cereal, you can practice this with plain cereal loops. You don’t have the color recognition, but you still have the other skills to practice!
Bonus: Have your toddler organize the cereal into piles by color while you create the jelly fish! On a piece of white paper draw colored circles and have your toddler place the matching cereal into the circles.
- Pom Pom Color Cup
This one does have a little set up from you, but you can reuse the cards you make when you do the activity again.
– On index cards (or cute pieces of white paper), draw a cup outline and then colored circles that match the pom poms you have.
– Give your toddler one card at a time and have them fill their own cup with pom poms that match the picture you drew.
Start easier and work up to more complicated combinations. Start with just 1-3 pom poms in your cup drawing and then you can work up to several and possibly multiple of certain colors.
Keep it simple, you got this! xx Ciara
