CandyLand Color Sorting Game with Lots of Movement

Give your Candyland game a new life with a simple and exciting color sorting game at home for preschoolers and toddlers too!

Recently, my three-year-old (Hannah) has really gotten into Candyland, the classic kids’ board game.

Any free minute we have, she asks to play it.

And we do – over and over and over.

Finally, I had to come up with another option that was similar enough to satisfy her but didn’t involve the colorful path on that game board.

This Candyland color sorting game uses the same color identification but mixes in plenty of movement!

Bonus – it couldn’t be simpler!

Download FREE Week of Move & Learn Kids Activities HERE!

Create Candyland Color Sorting Gross Motor Game

To create your own color sorting game like I did you will need the following items.

I used four small metal buckets (I got them at a dollar store years ago.)
masking tape
the cards from Candyland (Or make your own color dot cards with card stock and markers.)

My buckets are green, blue, yellow and red, so I only used the Candyland cards with those colors.

First, I taped a line on the driveway and lined the buckets up there.

Then the stack of cards went on the other side of the driveway with the girls.

The stack of cards was shuffled and laying face down.

I made the rules for this color sorting game very simple for my youngest to enjoy easily.

They took turns picking a card, running to the buckets, dropping it in the matching bucket and then running back.

Izzie (8) and Emma (6) took turns running with Hannah.

When Izzie was going by herself, she did all sorts of different movements to get from the cards to the buckets.

She ran a few times, then I named different ways for her to move.

Her favorites were running backwards and spinning.

This is a really easy way to keep it interesting for bigger kids or to add a gross motor challenge for the little ones.

After going through the stack of cards a few times, they wanted to change up the game a little.

We put the stack of cards in the middle and the four buckets around the cards to form a big circle.

Each girl drew a card, then ran around the circle to drop the card in the right bucket.

It was a toss-up which version they liked best!

Hannah was having so much fun, she didn’t even realize she was practicing her colors with this sorting game.

All three of them didn’t want to stop playing and immediately asked when they could play again.

Those are signs of a successful activity to me!