Learning to sort is an essential skill for preschoolers to learn for literacy and math development. These 20+ sorting activities for preschoolers are great to include in your early childhood lesson plans. Not only will they help preschoolers and kindergarteners learn to sort by color, shape, and size but will also provide excellent fine motor skill practice.
Sorting for Preschoolers
Kids naturally love to sort and it’s easy to see why, sorting makes life easier. There are so many natural opportunities to sort in our daily lives and it can help us feel organized and prepared. Can you imagine if sorting wasn’t a thing?
We sort clothes, silverware, items in our cabinets, and toys in our room. The library is full of sorted books and the grocery store is full of sorted foods. Teaching our children to sort is a life skill that will be used over and over again.
We’ve collected some fantastic activities that work on all sorts of sorting – color, shape, size, or atrribute and perfect prek sorting activities. Whether you use sorting mats, sorting buttons, or pom-poms, there are so many ways to use these activities for sorting.
FAQs About Teaching Sorting to Preschoolers
The best way to teach young children to sort is by starting with simple activities such as sorting objects of one color into a pile. Once children are able to do this with ease you can have them start sorting objects with different attributes.
Sorting helps children learn essential early literacy and math skills, fine motor practice, and executive function skills that they will use throughout adulthood.
It is important to include a variety of activities in your sorting lesson plans. Some good learning activities would be: sorting by color, matching color, comparing, ordering, classifying, and sorting by size and shape.
Don’t Forget the Picture Books!
There are so many amazing picture books that focus on math concepts and skills. I have hand-selected some of my favorite sorting books for your preschoolers.
Math Activities for Preschool Sorting
20+ Sorting Activities for Preschoolers
Here are 20+ sorting activities that are sure to be a fun way for preschoolers to practice sorting skills. These activities are simple to prepare for the home or classroom.
Farm Animal Sorting for Preschoolers
Here are three different ways to sort farm animal counters. Preschoolers love these manipulatives!
Initial Sound Object Matching
Initial sound object matching is a great phonics activities for beginning readers. Many students really respond well to tactile learning.
Graphing Lesson Plans For Preschoolers
Teaching graphing is easier than you might think. It is the natural next step after sorting and categorizing, something that preschoolers love to do anyway.
Initial Sound Picture Sort
This activity is easy to put together and extremely effective in helping students not only recognize the initial sound in a word but also correspond that sound to a letter.
Rainbow Trees Color Sorting Activity Your Preschoolers Will Love
This rainbow trees color sorting activity is a fun way for young children to practice color recognition and sorting while also working on their fine motor skills.
Rainbow Shamrock Color Sorting Printable Activities Preschoolers Love!
These rainbow shamrock color sorting printable activities are a fun way for toddlers and preschoolers to practice color recognition and sorting while also working on their fine motor skills.
FREE Fruit and Veggie Color Sorting Mats
Make food fun for preschoolers with these printable fruits and veggie color sorting mats.
Color Sorting and Fine Motor Activity for Toddlers
This simple but brilliant activity for toddlers uses foam cubes to teach color sorting and work on fine motor skills.
Sorting and Matching Pom Poms
Sorting and matching pom poms is an easy preschool measurement activity that requires very little set-up.
Back-to-School FREE Pencil Dominoes Printable
These Back-to-School Dominos teaches math skills, such as sorting and matching.
Daily Lessons in Sorting Preschool Math Unit
This Daily Lessons in Preschool Mathematics Comparing & Sorting Unit includes everything you need to teach sorting differentiation skills to your preschooler.
Jingle Bell Drop - a Color Sorting Fine Motor Activity
Jingle bell drop is a color sorting and fine motor activity for preschoolers. It combines holiday themes with educational activities and is so much fun!
A Fine Motor Color Sorting Activity
This fine motor color sorting activity using jumbo plastic tweezers was a huge success with my students.
Sorting by Type
This activity teaches preschoolers how to sort by type which is important for developing analytic thinking skills.
FREE Farm Theme Printable - Old Maid Card Game
This farm themed Old Maid is a free children’s card game, and luckily it also has some wonderful educational benefits such as teaching sorting and visual discrimination.
Colors and Shapes Sorting Activities for Preschoolers
Attribute sorting has real life applications, as does all other math, but we sort and classify much more frequently than we might realize.
Sorting Buttons: A Preschool Matching Game
This simple board game will help preschoolers learn to sort buttons by color and attribute. It's a great addition to your preschool math curriculum.
Six Ways to Sort Bottle Caps
Bottle caps are a useful material for the preschool classroom, especially for sorting activities.
Pasta Sort Three Ways
Dyed pasta is a simple way for preschoolers to learn to sort in different ways.
72 of the Best Math Picture Books for Kids
These math picture books for preschoolers are wonderful ways to introduce math concepts to early learners.
Fall Activity Bundle
This Fall Activity Bundle includes four seasonal activity packs and multiple variations of each activity!
We hope these more than 20 fun sorting activities for preschoolers help them develop math, literacy, and fine motor skills. These skills are important for kindergarten and beyond.
Materials For Teaching Sorting to Preschoolers
You can use materials from around the clasroom or house to teach sorting, but using these fun math manipulatives makes learning to sort fun and engaging. Plus, it makes preparing your sorting lessons so simple!
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I am an educator, book enthusiast, and a stay at home momma to two precious and long-awaited littles. My degree is in Early Childhood Education and Curriculum and Instruction and I have spent the last 15 years working with young children. I feel very fortunate to have this time to watch my babies grow and I can’t wait to share my passion for learning and reading with you!
