Toddler Matching Games

I'm joining some of my other bloggy friend today for a
SUMMER BLOG HOP

Summer is approaching and today some friends and I are sharing some of our favorite summer tips, activities, and bucket lists. Hop around and find some new ideas for your summer of fun.

Noah's Ark Themed Day from Through Clouded Glass 

School's Out for Summer from While I'm Waiting  

Water Play from BYBMG  

2015 Summer Bucket List & Snake Bubble Activity from Curly Crafty Mom 

Indoor and Outdoor Summer Activities from All Kinds of Things 

Summer Water Table Activities from She Builds Her Home 

Our Plans to Thrive from Our Pretty Little Girls 

Sidewalk Chalk Paint from Sweet Little Ones 

Easy Prep Summer Activities from Abiding In Grace 

Toddler Matching Games from Polka Dotty Place 

Summer Bucket List from Living In This Season

My bloggy friend Keri wrote an ebook for helping your family to THRIVE this summer!
Head over to her blog and read all about it

Now for a little more on my Toddler Matching Games:

It's starting to get HOT in Mississippi and I wanted to come up with some new toddler games for Olive that would be fun to play INSIDE.  I used things from around the house and didn't spend a penny.  I came up with four different matching games that would be really easy for you to replicate.  Olive is almost two so here are four matching games that are perfect for her.

// 1 //

MATCHING LIDS

I started saving all plastic lids months ago.  We use them as counters and now we match them.  We tend to eat the same things over and over again so it wasn't hard to end up with matching lids - pb lids, hair spray lids, fruit puree pouch lids, milk lids and spice jar lids were perfect.  I tried to pick out a variety of sizes, shapes and colors.

We have played this multiple times.

We practice colors, shapes and talk about sizes.

I'll pick up one lid and ask Olive to find the matching one.

She plays along and sometimes will even grab both lids in the pair.

She's getting better at matching and the lids are fun to stack in towers.

 // 2 //

MATCHING TAGS

I put pairs of stickers on pre-cut tags.

Olive likes pointing out the stars and pointing to each sticker,

but she's still working on finding pairs with this one.

I think they might be too similar in shape/style so I'd recommend using a variety of shapes/sizes for your sticker matching game.

Her best version of this games was to stick the tags in her shirt.  Silly girl.

// 3 //

MATCHING CUPCAKES

I gathered two of every cupcake liner I had and ended up with quite a fun collection.  I handed Olive a stack of them and she pulled them all apart.  She started naming them - hearts, strawberries, snowmen, etc.  So I spread them out separating the pairs and asking her to find the matching one.  She did well with this matching game.

// 4 //

MATCHING DESK SUPPLIES

Olive is obsessed with all desk supplies.  She could sit at my desk and go through the pens for hours.  So I collected a mixed assortment of desk supplies for her to match.  We worked on vocabulary words - pens, string, circle, blue, orange, marker, glue stick, etc. while we were trying to find pairs.  She did great with this one if I picked up a supply and named it, then she would imitate and find the pair.  She did want to stop and color with all these fun pens so we colored at the end.

I store each game in a ziploc bag and Olive has played with them almost every single day.  She has fun with them and I'm already thinking about other matching/memory games I can make for her as she gets older.  I think she'd have a lot of fun:

-matching her shoes

-matching pictures of people she loves

-matching popsicles

-matching shapes

-matching animals

Do you have any other matching game suggestions for us?