I love this sorting task from Lakeshore Learning. It’s called Color Discovery Boxes and you can find it on the Lakeshore Learning Website. I use this activity a lot with my preschool/kindergarten students and also my lower functioning students. This activity is not only great to work on sorting but also verbal/non-verbal requesting, naming, and identifying common objects.
Here’s how I use this activity in therapy. I usually have my student help me unzip the bag if they can to work on those fine motor skills. I pull out all four boxes and identify the color of each box as I set it on the table. I model the colors again “Red, Blue, Green, Yellow” as I touch each box again. If the student is verbal I try to get them to say those color words after my speech model. For some of my student, I have them help take the lids off as I model “top off” for each box. I pour the items in the bag or in another container.
I try to do this activity with a group of 2 or 3 students so I can also focus on turn taking skills within the group. There are many different ways you can use this activity depending on the needs and goals of your students. When working in a group I establish whose turn it is and practice turn taking throughout the sorting activity. You can even focus on the student touching the “my turn” pictures on a core board, touching the “my turn” picture on a communication book, or verbally saying “my turn” on each turn. I either pull an item out of the bag or have the student pull an item out of the bag.
If the student is verbal, I usually try to have him/her verbally name the color and/or name the item before he/she can put it in the box. Then I model the color term and object name for the student such as “blue fish”. For this task I try to keep my language very simple so the focus in on the object names, color concepts, and preposition “in” during the entire task. I find myself using the same simple phrases for each object such as “red in”, “red apple” or “apple in” when the student gets the red apple.
For my non-verbal student if the goal is to request I hold up the item and have the student request the item using pictures. One option is to have a communication book with 1-4 color pictures on the book and have the student select the correct color picture from a visual field of 1-4 pictures depending on the level and exchange the picture with the communication partner in exchange for the item. You can also use pictures of all the objects and place a set number of pictures on the communication book for the student to discriminate between and exchange with the communication partner for the object. You can also have the student sign color words, use the “more” sign” or touch the “want” or “more” pictures on a core board/communication book.
If the focus is on receptive language skills, I hold out 2 items and tell the student which item to take. For example, I might hold up the red apple and the yellow ball and say either “take red” or “find apple”. After the student selects the correct item, he/she can find the correct box to put the item.
You can always change the level of prompting or focus of the activity depending on your students level. You can even have the student just work on discriminating between 2 colors if 4 is too many. There are so many ways to adapt this activity to meet the goals and level of your students.
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2 Responses
I love Lakeshore products! They are so well made and last forever!
Me too! They last SO long!