A classic children’s activity with a twist
Here is a great activity that will keep your kids busy for HOURS! It’s a bead-sorting game… with a twist! This activity strengthens your child’s pincer grip, teaches them colors and shapes, can be a great opportunity to boost language-learning, and of course teaches them to sort objects into groups. You can start out simple and build up the challenges as your child gets better at the activity – even my 6 year old loves it!
What you need:
🔹 Colorful plastic beads
🔹 A container for sorting (could be a muffin tin, paper cups, etc)
🔹 Kid’s chopsticks (or even just their fingers!)
What you do:
🔸Pick up one bead at a time
🔸Sort by color, shape, or size
🔸Name each color or shape as you play
Language-Booster:
You can play this game in any language with your child, and in as many as you’d like – it won’t feel like learning, because they are having fun and focusing on the task of moving beads from one container to another. They will want to play over and over again!
When first introducing this activity to my 3-year-old son and niece, we started out simple, only concentrating on how to use the chopsticks and letting them move the beads to whichever cup they wanted. As they got the hang of that, we started sorting the beads by color, naming each out loud in both English and Korean languages. The great thing about this activity: you can add to the challenges, change the sorting criteria, and use with any language you are teaching your child! The possibilities are endless!
