Clothespin Drop!

What You Need:

• 5 Coffee cans, 1lb. size each
• 5 Sheets of construction paper (red, orange, yellow, green and blue)
• Clear tape
• Scissors
• 25 Wooden clothespins
• Tempera paint (red, orange, yellow, green, blue)
• Markers
• Paintbrushes
• Stopwatch, or digital clock

What You Do:

1. Help your child cut down each piece of construction paper to the size.
2. Roll one color of paper around each can and tape it in place.
3. Have your child tell you which color is on each can, while you write the name of the corresponding color onto the paper.
4. Ask her to separate the clothespins into groups of 5.
5. Have her paint each group of clothespins a different color. Let dry.
6. Line up the cans on the floor in a row, in the center of a room.
7. Scatter the clothespins, mixing the colors around in the cans.
8. Encourage her to see how quickly she can separate the colors and put them in the corresponding can. Time her to see how quick she is!
9. Dump them out again and mix them up. Tell her what her last time was and shave off a few seconds. Yell, "Go!" and have her re-sort them. Yell, "Stop!" at the end of the time allotted. Did her speed increase? The more she practices, the faster she'll get!
10. Practice creating patterns by timing her as she places clothespins in the colored tins in a specific order. As she continues, try to introduce more complex patterns.