Circles and Dots is a fun color matching game that toddlers and preschoolers can really get into. I’ve found this was a great way to entertain my toddler and was such an easy indoor activity to set up that kept her busy and learning.
This activity always makes me think of that playground rhyme:
Circle, circle, dot, dot
Now I’ve got my cootie shot.
This toddler game has absolutely nothing to do with cooties or rhyming, but there are circles involved… and yes, lots and lots of dots.
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How to Set UP and Play Circles and Dots
You can do this activity with regular-sized paper, but a huge sheet of butcher paper makes this game extra fun.
(Tap here to see another activity we did with butcher paper!)
To start, I taped a huge sheet of butcher paper to the floor and covered it with colorful dot stickers.
The girls would’ve helped, but they were asleep, so I decided to do this by myself.
I decided to let Elena use markers for the game because I think the color shows up better than crayons. Ours are these ultra-clean washable ones, and I’m happy to report that stray marks do come off very easily!
When Elena was ready to play, I had her pick a color and use a marker to circle every dot in that color.
Drawing circles is a great pre-writing exercise for preschoolers. Think about how many of our letters have circles, or at least round-ish shapes.
I haven’t specifically taught my daughter how to properly hold a pencil yet, which I totally need to do now that I’m looking at these pictures again. Ah well, next time.
Once Elena circled her favorite colors, she decided to go on a “color walk.”
This entailed using the circled dot stickers as step stones and she challenged herself to get across the paper by stepping only on a single color.
What We’re Learning
There was lots of color matching and identifying going on throughout this game. Circles and Dots are a fun way to help kids learn their colors.
A couple other fun color learning activities we do is sorting with cereal and a color sorting sensory bin.
Of course, there’s lots of fine motor work happening here, but also a little gross motor because of the size of the paper we used.
I loved Elena’s color walk idea. That was a great way for her to get some energy out while still focused on our original objective: identifying colors.
Other Ways to Play
If your kids are more interested in stickers, you could do this game in reverse. Draw a bunch of colored circles and let them match the dot stickers to the circles.
You can also skip the dot stickers and either draw dots, or draw circles and have kids color them in.
Connect the dots would be really simple to do, as well. It doesn’t even have to be a picture of anything. Just connecting the colored dots will be exciting enough.
Your Turn to Play Circles & Dots
I hope this activity and ideas for additional ways to play helps you keep your toddler entertained today.
And if you don’t have the exact same supplies we used, that’s OK. Substitute what we used for something that you already have at home.
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