Helping the Colour Monster to Sort

Inspired by The Colour Monster, this Maths colour sorting for toddlers and children is a wonderful way to not only develop sorting skills but to support our children in their emotional development. As with all our activities in our May activity box the aim of this activity to develop our children’s ability to recognise and name those tricky emotions which we experience everyday.

Set Up

Using the resources in our May activity box I chose to focus on sorting and discussing two emotions with my son each time. If your child is older they may be able to sort and discuss more emotions.

I then put the relevant loose parts out and labelled two glass jars for sorting. I had the book open so I could read how the monster felt when he was experiencing each emotion.

My son loves this story and when I explained that the colour monster was feeling confused and we needed to help him sort his colours, out my son couldn’t wait to help.

He chose not to sort into the colour pots but wanted to put the coloured loose parts on the relevant pages instead.

The conversations that my son and I had about each of the emotions was invaluable. I explained how each emotion makes me feel and he was able to then recall a time when he had felt those emotions “Do you remember when I was angry? Daddy said no to climbing.” “The bug on the iPad made me scared. Then I cried.”

This activity we will continue to repeat and mix up the emotions because the more we talk about how we feel the stronger our mental health becomes.