Paper Clip Color Sort

I love how my son’s mind works. He instinctively wants to put everything in its place and actually goes around cleaning up if we are too slow to do so. Last week, he picked up his sister’s toy from his room and placed it neatly where it belonged. Clearly I need to place his sorting superpowers to work and so I created a simple and quick game of paper clip color sort.

I am addicted to stationary- if it is pretty I want it. My kids have unfortunately discovered this fact and know where a few of my stashes are. I have a relatively sizeable stash of paperclips and thought they were perfect for C to get sorting.

What You Need

Please note that affiliate links are used below for your convenience.

 Officemate Plastic Coated Paper Clips, No. 2 Size-Assorted-450 ct 50 Counting Bears with 5 Cups

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• small cup to hold all the paper clips (optional)

 

How To Play Paper Clip Color Sort

1. Decide if you want your preschooler to sort all 5 colors or less.
2. Place those cups on a desk to stand
3. Give your child the cup with the paper clips and demonstrate what needs to be done.
4. Place the blue paper clip in the blue cup, the red paper clip in the red cup etc
5. Allow your preschooler to sort them
6. When they are finished sorting, pour them all out and sort again.

Paper Clip Ideas for Your Older Child

Older kids can also play as well, I know my daughter did. She simply played ‘teacher’ and ensured that he was sorting them correctly. She could have also created patterns with the paper clips.

This will give you roughly 5 minutes at least of personal time- enough to realize that you still need to figure out what’s for dinner.