Shamrock Color Sorting Activity for Preschoolers
Keep your little ones amused and learning with this fun shamrock color sorting activity for preschoolers! Kids can practice color recognition, sorting skills, and fine motor abilities while having a blast. Sorting activities are the perfect way to help children learn to classify their world from the start.
Ring in St. Patrick’s Day with colorful fun and hands-on play! This free sorting activity is perfect for learning colors and sorting skills.
Why Do Color Sorting Activities with Preschoolers?
Who doesn’t love learning about rainbows in preschool?! And with St. Patrick’s Day just around the corner, we love them even more!
Color sorting with these colorful mats is a great way to expose preschoolers to naming and identifying colors as well as learning to sort and develop hand strength and fine motor coordination.
Sorting with color helps give preschoolers the confidence to begin sorting in different ways. Learning to sort and group things together is an important skill that requires logical thinking and problem-solving, especially as the sorting attributes get more complicated (such as sorting with two or more attributes). Sorting also teaches your preschooler to notice similarities and differences and learn to classify.
When presented with sorting opportunities in preschool, it’s important to make the tasks fun and easy with play intertwined. This increases engagement and interest and allows for learning to feel fun, instead of heavy or boring.
If you are looking for more color matching and sorting practice, grab our color sorting mats with themes for the entire year! Or for math lessons, snag our daily lessons in comparing and sorting for math lesson plans, daily instruction, centers, and more!
Picture Books that Teach Colors
These colorful books are so lovely for teaching colors, color mixing, rainbows, and art skills in one adorable combination!
This post may contain affiliate links, which means that at no cost to you, I may earn a small sum if you click through and make a purchase.
- Hardcover Book
- Chung, Arree (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- Dodd, Emma (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 32 Pages – 02/24/2003 (Publication Date) – Puffin Books (Publisher)
- Hardcover Book
- Wilson, Karma (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- Publishing, kropka (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 38 Pages – 04/09/2021 (Publication Date) – Independently published (Publisher)
- Pallotta, Jerry (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 10 Pages – 02/01/2013 (Publication Date) – Charlesbridge (Publisher)
- Hardcover Book
- Dr. Seuss (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- Reiss, John J. (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 34 Pages – 10/25/2016 (Publication Date) – Little Simon (Publisher)
Shamrock Color Printable for Sorting
A St. Patrick’s Day printable like this one is especially fun for preschoolers because they get the fun of rainbow colors in addition to the lucky clovers so symbolic of St. Patrick’s Day. This means not only is it fitting for the holiday, but also for any preschooler or toddler who is learning colors. And don’t forget there is a lot of fine motor work, too, which is so important for developing pencil grip.
What’s Included
This printable includes one shamrock mat for each rainbow color, (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple) plus two blackline copies for use copying on colored paper or coloring in with art supplies.
Materials
- Free rainbow shamrock printable (found at the end of this post)
- Pom poms in rainbow colors (or buttons or unifix cubes)
- Jumbo tweezers or mini tongs
The Set-Up
Print the shamrock printable on heavy cardstock. There are two versions available. You can print the shamrock in color or alternatively you can print the blackline copy on colored paper instead.
Place the shamrock on a table with a set of rainbow manipulatives of some sort. Here are some ideas of manipulatives you can use:
- pom poms
- buttons
- math counters
- floral pebbles
- connecting cubes
- crumpled paper
Place the counters on a tray, all mixed up, alongside the shamrock printable.
How to Teach Colors
The primary activity that inspired this simple (but oh-so-fun) preschool activity is straightforward. Invite your preschooler to use their fingers, tongs or tweezers to sort the pom poms into the shamrock printables. Using tweezers can be hard for many preschoolers. They are hard to “tweeze”, which is by design because it really works on strengthening their hands.
If you have a young preschooler or a toddler, she might choose to use her hands to transfer the pom poms. This is perfectly ok. Picking up each pom pom requires the use of the pincer grasp, so she will still be working on fine motor skills.
If your preschooler doesn’t like to use the jumbo tweezers or mini tongs, this might be because his hands are not strong enough or coordinated enough to use them.
But that’s why we present our preschoolers with activities like this rainbow shamrock color sorting activity. Even if your preschooler only uses the tongs for a few pom poms, she is still strengthening her hands.
Not to mention that she is learning to use real-life tools with real-life hand movements. This is important in the physical development of a preschooler.
Shamrock Printables
Grab some of these printable activities with a shamrock theme for your preschoolers this St. Patrick’s day!
- Preschool Shamrock Craft
- Roll and Cover Shamrock Game
- Handprint St. Patrick’s Day Poem Keepsake
- Shamrock Lacing Cards
Rainbow Shamrock Printables
Looking for more rainbow options? These arts and crafts rainbow shamrock printables are sure to dazzle and delight!
- Rainbow Shamrock Fine Motor Craft
- Tissue Paper Shamrock Suncatcher Craft
- Fingerprint Rainbow Shamrock Craft
- Coffee Filter Shamrock Art
Rainbow Preschool Toys
Learning through play is one of the best gifts we can give to our preschoolers! These items/toys are certainly bonus materials but make for an engaging rainbow themed learning unit and a great way to infuse St. Patrick’s Day into your theme!
- Fun Stacking Toys: Stack-a-Rainbow-Tree is in the shape of cute leaves. It’s endless fun for…
- Develop Skills: Keep balance, otherwise the tree would fall down! The kids toys encourage…
- Learning & Education Toys: The preschool toy comes in 7 bright colors, which is great for colors…
- 🌈 【SAFE MATERIAL】: Our rainbow bead game is made of 100% natural wood and coated with…
- 🌈 【SORTING & COLOR TOYS】: This toy will help your little boy or girl start recognizing colors…
- 🌈 【PRESCHOOL LEARNING TOYS】: Matching game can promote children’s logical thinking skills,…
- 【SAFE AND DURABLE MATERIALS】Children’s wooden letter puzzles, made of natural wood, Smooth…
- 【FUN PRESCHOOL EDUCATION】 This toddler toy greatly enhances fine motor skills and cognitive…
- 【Montessori-Inspired Learning】baby toys for kids magic tracks, The magnetic maze board is a fun…
- Building Colorful Skills: Kids learn a rainbow of sorting, patterning, and early addition skills…
- Fine Motor Fun: Designed for little hands, this toddler toy’s fine motor tongs help kids build…
- Built-In Storage: When playtime’s done, this preschool learning toy’s 30 counters, 5 activity…
- Sorting Fun & Sensory Play: These sorting bears make learning exciting as toddler toys and color…
- Easy lesson planning: Suitable for kindergarten learning activities, daycares, classrooms, and…
- Rainbow Bear Bliss: Designed to motivate and stimulate young minds, these color sorting toys for…
- COLOR CHANGING TOYS FOR KIDS: Translucent paddles that children can look through to change their…
- PRESCHOOL SCIENCE FOR KIDS: Demonstrate the principles of color mixing
- 3 DIFFERENT TEXTURES: Each paddle is segmented with 3 different textures
- Acrylic Rainbow Blocks Set: Our building stacking blocks set comes with 128 colorful geometric…
- Learning Educational Kids Toy: This colorful learning and educational toy is an ideal toy to promote…
- Safe Materials: Our building block set is made of high-quality acrylic and non-toxic wood materials,…
Grab Your Free Rainbow Shamrock Color Sorting Printable Here!
Think you want to add these color activities to your St. Patrick’s Day preschool lesson plans? Remember this printable includes a blackline version so you can even use them for shamrock coloring pages and make a booklet to take home.
More Color Activities for Preschool
I’m Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home-mama of five! I’m the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught a range of levels, from preschool to college and a little bit of everything in between. Right now my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.
I love this!! Thanks for using your creativity to make such a fun resource!