Rainbow Sorting Activity for Preschoolers that Can Hang

Last Updated on February 11, 2024 by Sheryl Cooper

Inside: Put together a rainbow sorting activity for preschoolers that will not only work on color recognition, but also fine motor skills. The final product creates a nice hanging decoration for your window. Free sorting printables included!

I love classroom decor that is made by the children.

I also love a good clearance sale.

So, when I was planning our rainbow theme, I recalled the clear plastic baubles I had purchased after Christmas that were a steal. I thought of a way to involve our preschoolers making a rainbow we could hang in our classroom window.

This was a great color sorting activity plus it strengthened fine motor skills as the children used their fingers to push the small pieces through the openings of the baubles.

And I just love the results!

Putting Together a Rainbow Sorting Activity

What we used:

• Clear plastic fillable baubles, similar to these .
• Small pieces that are the colors of the rainbow.
• Color sorting printables. (Scroll down to find download.)

CLICK HERE to find more rainbow activities!

The activity:

Print the color sheets and laminate, if desired. (I love to laminate my printables so we can store them in our theme boxes and use them year after year. I use and love this laminator.)

Spread the color sheets on a flat surface and place the small pieces on a tray.

Invite the children to sort the small items by color, placing them on the matching colored sheets.

Once the pieces are sorted, place one bauble on each color sheet.

Tell the children they are going to make a rainbow! Invite them to take the baubles on each color sheet and place the pieces inside.

Some will use fingers, some will use thumbs.

This is a great fine motor exercise!

Once the pieces have been placed in the baubles, place the tops back on them.

Have the children place the filled baubles on the matching colored sheets.

Call out each color while doing so.

Now they are ready to be hung!

Place the baubles in rainbow order.

We already had a tension rod in our window, so I used paper clips to hang the baubles on them. Christmas hooks would have worked better, but that would mean having to dig through my Christmas boxes that I feel like I just packed up and put away.

So, paper clips were the next best thing and worked fine.

The children love looking at our hanging rainbow, and will call out the colors as they point to each one.

Click photo below to get the pdf download:

More color fun for preschoolers:

Simple Color Sorting in a Bag

Toddler Rainbow Mobile Activity

Paper Plate Rainbow Suncatchers

Preschool Color Lesson Plans

I am so excited to be a co-author of these color theme lesson plans.

24 preschool learning activities for your colors theme, including literacy, math, science, art, fine motor, and more! A great resource for teachers and homeschoolers.

CLICK HERE for more information!