For many of us, organizing things gives us a sense of satisfaction. Everything has its place, and that place is especially easy to find when everything in that place is one color. For Baby, sorting things by color can help them understand colors, patterns, and order.
Sorting for fun
Putting the benefits of sorting activities aside for a moment, sorting is just fun! If you’re looking for an afternoon game, you can pull out some crayons, colored pencils, sheets of paper, or blocks and encourage Baby to sort them by color. You can even use all of those objects and have them sort them by shape AND color, or they can mix different objects of the same color. It’s a blast!
Sorting for cleanup
Having things in Baby‘s space sorted by color can make cleanup easier because they will be able to help! All of their red toys go in this area, all of their blue toys go here, and all their yellow toys go back there. You can organize their bookshelf by the color of the books’ spines and choose bedtime stories by color and always know where to put away a book. It will help Baby with instructions because the instructions themselves will basically be color-coded, and sorting by color can help turn clean-up into a game!
Sorting for learning
Being able to sort by color and recognize color patterns is a skill that can eventually translate into math and language skills. Baby will understand that these things are the same color, so they’re in the same group. Later, they will be able to apply that knowledge to numbers and letters to see which ones are different and which ones are the same. You might even use color-coded letters as part of a sorting game to introduce Baby to reading!
Sorting is entertaining and has educational value, so if Baby spills some crayons onto the ground after an art activity, don’t see it as a mess – see it as an opportunity for sorting!
