Color Activities for Toddler, Preschool, & Pre-K

Study the colors of the rainbow with these 28 color activities for toddlers, preschool, and pre-k children. These activities are easy to prep and will be a big hit in your classroom! They will teach children about color names, sorting skills, fine motor skills, and so much more! If you are studying COLOR MIXING, check out the Color Mixing blog post for ideas just for that. Need to complete the color theme with printable resources? Check out the Colors Little Learners Math Unit and Colors Science for Little Learners Unit!

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Color Activities for Little Learners

Color Wheel Collage! What a great way to use all your colorful scraps and turn them into a fun project! Students will practice fine motor, sorting, and gluing skills to make this rainbow wheel. Even better, have students practice collaboration skills and make this a group project! To make, use a large piece of poster board or plain paper and draw lines to create a pie chart. Then, paint or color each section a different color. Students could help you complete this step. Then, gather small items to sort into each color category. Have students glue them down to make a classroom display, or leave them loose so you can wipe them off and have another group of students sort the objects. 

Student Color Wheels! Grab this color wheel sorting worksheet in the Little Learners Science All About Colors Unit. Students could create their own mini color wheel and sort foam pieces, beads, small pieces of paper, or other colorful manipulatives you have in your room. 

Rainbow Color Collage! Grab this adorable FREEBIE at the bottom of the post to practice sorting colors, cutting, gluing, and fine motor skills! Use tissue paper squares, paper squares, patterned scrapbook paper, torn paper, or other various collage materials. The freebie is a sample from the Little Learners Math Colors Unit!

>>Grab the Rainbow Color Collage FREEBIE at the bottom of this post by entering your email in the box<<

Color Cutting Collage Light Table! Create a cutting activity at your light table with strips of tissue paper and wax paper. The light shines through the tissue paper so beautifully! It is such a fun way for students to work on cutting skills, color identification, gluing skills, social skills, hand-eye coordination, crossing the midline, and more. Your little kids are going to love these new ways to do open-ended art projects in your preschool classroom. 

Rainbow Directed Drawing! Toddlers, preschool, or pre-k students will love to make this rainbow artwork! First, have students draw a rainbow with oil pastels. Then, have students use watercolors to make the rainbow and background. Lastly, sprinkle kosher salt over the picture while it is wet and let dry. Once dry, shake off the salt. The salt creates the sprinkled effect. This is one of my favorite color activities!

Silly Straws Lacing! Head to the dollar store to grab some silly straws, regular straws, and wide straws (for smoothies). Then, cut up the large straws and regular straws into smaller pieces. Students will lace the straw pieces onto the silly straws. This is great for fine motor development, hand-eye coordination, counting, patterns, and so much more. The light box shines through the colorful straws for an inviting learning environment. Other loose parts could be added, too, and if you don’t have silly straws, pipe cleaners are great for lacing on. 

Rainbow Letters! Use butcher paper to make this colorful letter-sorting activity. Draw a rainbow on the butcher paper to match the colors of the magnet letters that you have. Then, let students sort the letters on the lines. To add even more learning opportunities, have students write the letters they sort on a recording sheet or have them say the letter names and sounds before sorting them. 

Paint Clip Letters! Use paint strips to make these colorful letter cards. Begin by cutting each color apart and then use a permanent marker to write the letters on each square. Students can use them to match letters, put in ABC order, make words, make names, or sort by color. This is an option for free color activities for your classroom!

Pretend Paint! Use empty paint buckets from your local hardware store, grab some paintbrushes from the dollar store, and laminate paint strips. I like to put the paint strips on a binder ring to keep them together and organized. Place all these materials in the blocks center and see your students’ imaginations soar! 

Paint Chip Cutting Collage! Grab a handful of paint strips and let your students cut and glue them onto a sheet to make a colorful collage. Students can strengthen fine motor skills while cutting the paint strips and gluing them into fun shapes and patterns. If your students are younger, like my students are in this photo, cut the paint strips to make them skinnier and easier to cut.

Color Towers! Grab this color activities tower FREEBIE so your toddlers, preschool, or pre-k students can build, sort, and classify colors! Print the freebie, grab some legos, and let your children explore and grow! 

>>Grab the Color Activities Towers FREEBIE by entering your email in the box at the bottom of this post!<<

Color Activities Sorting Tray! Grab a tray and some bear manipulatives to make this fun sorting tray! If you don’t have bear counters, check out all these other fun counters! I placed a colored sticker in each section, so students know where to put the manipulatives to practice sorting. Have students use tweezers to get even more fine motor skills! To sneak in math, add a color dice!

Color Parking Lot! Practice sorting, identifying, and matching colors with this color parking lot worksheet from the Little Learners Math Color Unit. Students can drive the cards into the matching parking spot! Pick up some small cars here!

Color Chain Links! Little learners will love these chain color activities! There is something special about chains because my little learners LOVE any activity with these color chains! Build fine motor strength while sorting colors with these cards from the Little Learners Math Colors Unit. You will find the chains here. 

Bear Color Match! Sort bears into their corresponding color caves with these sorting cards that can be found in the Little Learners Math Color Unit. Don’t have bear counters? No problem! There are other cards in the pack that are for other popular-shaped counters. 

Donut Sprinkles! Students will love this adorable donut color game! You will find it in the Little Learners Math Colors Unit. Students will sort beads or other small manipulatives to match the color of the frosting. Dyed beans or pom poms would make a great manipulative, too! 

Turn this game and many others from the colors math unit into file folder games by gluing the printable to the folder. Then, collect the manipulatives and place them in a paper envelope or plastic bag, and staple them to the outside of the folder. Done; everything you need for a center or an activity for an early finisher. 

Color Ice Cube Sorting Tray! Place a colored sticker in each area of the ice cube tray and give your students small manipulatives to sort by color. I used pom poms, but beads, dyed beans, or dyed noodles would make great manipulatives. Place tweezers in the area for even more fine motor practice!

Shopping Color Sort! Students can practice sorting objects by colors in this fun shopping bag game. Grab the printables from the Little Learners Math Colors Unit. Students can sort plastic food items, pom poms, counters, or other random toys. 

Color Monsters! Students will love to feed the color monsters! Print the monsters that are found in the Little Learners Math Colors Unit and staple them to paper bags or boxes. Then, cut out the food items for sorting. Students will feed the monsters their corresponding colored food. This activity goes great with The Color Monster book. 

Paint Sorting Color Activities! Grab this activity from the Little Learners Math Colors Unit. Students will sort the items by color into the paint cans. Tape these onto the outside of empty paint cans to make this even more fun! 

Color Chains! Create these adorable color chain clouds with a white paper plate, color dots, a hole punch, and chain links. Students can sort by color, number, or free design. Chain links are great for fine motor work for little hands.

Color Puzzles! Print on cardstock and laminate to make these puzzles durable. Students will match the color word with the pictures of 2 real-life objects. Teach vocabulary and colors in one activity. These color puzzles are found in the Little Learners Math Colors Unit. 

Color Activities Graph! Practice graphing skills, color sorting, counting, and fine motor skills with this color graphing activity found in the Little Learners Math Colors Unit. You can sort buttons, pom poms, cut-up pipe cleaners, beads, or other small, colorful manipulatives. The game comes with a printable spinner board. You can use a paperclip and a pencil to make a spinner or use these clear spinner covers to make a spinner for the game. 

Ice Cream Color Graph! Students sort pom poms into each category on the ice cream graph. Add in tweezers to strengthen their fine motor muscles—practice counting and talking about less than, greater than, and equal to with this fun graph. Grab this printable in the Little Learners Math Colors Unit. 

Bead Color Graph! Your toddler, preschool, and pre-k students will love making this 3D bead color graph! Grab some play dough and colored matchsticks to make the graph. Then give the students a bowl of pony beads. Students will sort the beads by color by sliding them onto the sticks, which will also help them strengthen their hand-eye cordination. 

Turn it into a game by adding a color dot die or making a DIY color dice. Use a cube block and colored dot stickers to make the die. Then students will roll the die and place the corresponding bead on the stick. Practice counting more than, less than, and equal to with this fun graph!

Spin Art! Grab one of these spin art kits or a salad spinner to make amazing creations. Students will squirt paint onto a spinning sheet of paper. The colors mix, swirl, and spread to create rainbow pictures that little learners will love! 

Color Play Dough Trays! Use these chip and dip trays that have multiple compartments to create a rainbow playdough tray. I used a neutral playdough color and then added all kinds of colorful manipulatives for the students to add. Pipe cleaners, beads, buttons, pom poms, gems, and colored matchsticks in various colors are great to use. Playdough is beneficial to students because it forces them to use all kinds of hand muscles to manipulate and shape the dough. 

Color Sensory Table! Make a bright and beautiful sensory table to engage your child’s senses and imagination! I used dyed rice to make mine. Check out this post on how to dye rice. I added in pom poms, beads, colored silicone spatulas, bowls, and muffin cups. Rainbow rice is one of my all-time favorite sensory fillers.

Color Sensory Bags! Practice colors with these rainbow sensory bags. Check out this post to see the steps to make a sensory bag for little learners. Add glitter, plastic confetti, or small manipulatives into the bags to make them even more fun before you add the tape or have students sort the materials on top of the sensory bags. They can press, squish, and stamp the objects on top of the color bag.

Color Sensory Bottles! Watch this Facebook live with tips and tricks to make these rainbow sensory bottles! Add in beads, glitter, and other small plastic manipulatives to add in more texture and visual appeal. 

Color Mixing! Show students different ways to mix colors with this fun experiment found in the Little Learners Science All About Colors Unit. Teach little learners about primary colors, secondary colors, and how to make new colors. 

Colors can be such a fun and exciting unit for little learners! Check out more blog posts and resources all about colors!

HUGE list of books all about colors! 

Check out this post; all about mixing colors!

Grab the Little Learners Science All About Colors Unit here!

Grab the Little Learners Math Colors Unit to complete your rainbow unit!

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