Play a Matching Game: Missing Color

Take your child one step beyond color recognition with this fun matching activity. He'll need to use his color knowledge and visual perceptual skills to match a stick with four colored dots to the stick that has the missing color. This activity will help strengthen his memory and visual skills, and he'll have a lot of fun doing it!

What You Need:

• 16 craft sticks
• 5 markers, 4 colored and 1 black

What You Do:

1. First, get your sticks ready. Eight of the sticks will have four dots of different colors on it in varying sequences. Leave the center of the stick clear and make two dots above the center, and two dots below. Since you are using five different colors, each stick will be missing one color. To make the matches, take the other eight sticks, and draw dots in the center that correspond with the missing colors on each of the other set. Make sure each stick has a match.
2. When you're all done, give the craft sticks to your child. Encourage him to look very carefully at each of the sticks with four dots, then find the stick that has the color that's missing.

If he struggles at first, provide him with help and encouragement, but after a few tries, let him do it on his own. The more practice he gets, the stronger his skills will grow!