I am so excited to share this simple color matching game with you. It’s educational, it’s fun, it keeps little hands busy, and best of all it’s really easy to make!
Hubby and I are taking our two toddlers (they’re one and three) on a 1,846 mile road trip to visit family. We’re probably crazy, but I’m determined that this trip is going to be a blast! I figure the key to a successful road trip is to have lots of snacks, little surprises and new activities for the kiddos during the drive. We’ll see how it goes. 🙂
My 3-year-old is really great at identifying colors when they are in their most saturated form. When colors turn into tints and shades the color gets a little trickier for him to name. So, I thought this color matching game might help with that. If not, he’ll still have fun opening and closing the little clothes pins, and it should keep him busy for a while.
Make a Color Matching Game
Supplies:
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- Paint Color Swatch Samples
- Clothes Pins
- Glue
- Paper cutter or scissors
How to assemble:
The first thing I did was visit my local hardware store, and gather a bunch of paint strip samples. I picked up samples that had several tints of the same color on one strip. For us, I thought this would be fun and more challenging than matching a single color.
I bought these little 2″ craft clothes pins. I like these because they are a little smaller than regular size clothes pins. To me they seem easier for little fingers to operate.
Cut
I grabbed my paper cutter and sliced off one thin strip from each side of the paint sample, approximately the width of my clothes pins. My paint samples were pretty wide, so this worked well for me. You could always grab two of the same color if they were more narrow. Then use one sample for clipping your clothes pins too, and one for cutting into strips.
Once I had all of my color strips cut, I snipped them down to size to fit on the clothes pins.
Glue
Then I started gluing them in place. It worked well for me to do one side for the entire set of clothes pins and let it dry before doing the other side.
My first attempt to attach the color strips was to use mod podge. That made the paper curl, and it was pretty messy. I didn’t want to fuss with a bunch of mess. So, the second attempt was to use good ol’ glue stick. It worked like a dream! For the amount of handling these game pieces are going to get, I think the glue stick will hold up well.
Like I said earlier, I cut two strips one for each side of the clothes pin. To keep myself organized, and make sure I had the colors matched up properly, I put the second strip in the clothes pin to keep track of it.
I was amazed how similar some of these colors look once they are cut into smaller strips. So organization is definitely key with this activity!
A little glue to the second side, stick the color down and voila. You’re finished!
Time to play your new game!
Once the glue has dried you’re able to start matching the pins to their corresponding color swatches. 🙂
Let me know if you make a game like this. I’d love to see it!
Happy color matching!
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