My daughter, like many toddlers and preschoolers, is a natural color matcher. I knew she would like this fine motor activity, but I was still happily surprised by the concentration she showed while doing it. I used color matching to grab her attention so that she would be more inclined to participate in a challenging activity. This color-matching activity not only for color recognition it is excellent for both fine motor development and eye-hand coordination too. We called it a turkey feather match since we’ve been talking a lot about turkeys and Thanksgiving, but you could do this fine motor activity any time of year.
- Gather your materials. You will need some styrofoam, colored feathers, permanent markers in colors that match your feathers. That’s it! Make sure you are using sturdy feathers, the small feathers you get at some crafts stores won’t be strong enough.
- Start by making dots on the styrofoam with the markers.
- Invite your best color matcher to do their thing! Look at those fine motor skills!
I showed her how to do the first one, and then she was off! It takes a good amount of hand strength to pinch the feathers and push them into the styrofoam. It’s such a great way to build those fine motor skills needed for eventual handwriting and other skills like using utensils. 
- She pointed out extra dots that we had no feathers to match. Luckily I hadn’t put all the feathers out and was able to get a few more for her to color match and continue to work on those fine motor skills.She liked the contrasting textures too, which brought a little sensory experience into the activity as well.
- And she did.
More Fine Motor Activities
Click here to see some of my favorite ways of building fine motor skills with toddlers and preschoolers.
carson-dellosa says
Such a smart and fun idea! And what a great reinforcement of those important fine motor skills. We also love the idea to thread pipe cleaners through a colander like here: http://happyhomefairy.com/2011/11/26/a-colander-and-some-pipe-cleaners/
Suja Balaji says
Nice!
Doing this with my toddler today. Luckily we have all the materials.
Ann says
What a neat and original idea! We’ve been playing with styrofoam for several days (hammering golf tees in it – wish I could remember where I first saw that idea) so this will give us something new to do with it.
We also love pipe cleaners and colanders as mentioned by Carson in her comment. The kids never grow tired of it.
Being Inspired says
This is such a cute idea! I bet she loved the sensation of pushing the feathers into the styrofoam! Pinning. 🙂
jessica says
i love this! i justp ut out the foam, golf tees and hammers for the kidos at school. i think this would be fun too or maybe along with pipecleaners. though who knows what they would do with the feathers. i love how their play changes with what is thrown into the mix. Thank you!
Kirstylee says
This is an amazing idea. I never would have thought to put craft feathers into styrofoam like this. Awesome!
Georgina @ Craftulate says
Just featured this in my feather craft roundup! http://craftulate.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/15-feather-crafts-for-children.html