Flower Garden Colour Matching and Fine Motor Game

This sweet little flower garden not only helps little ones work on their colour matching abilities, but it also offers some great buttoning practice and helps to develop fine motor skills in general too!

What you will need:

• medium to large buttons in a variety of colours
• felt sheets in coordinating colours
• green craft foam
• scissors
• daisy-shaped paper cut-out (you can draw one freehand or get some help from Google Images)
• simple leaf-shaped paper cut-out  (again, you can draw one freehand or get some help from Google Images)
• small wooden dowels
• green acrylic paint
• paintbrush
• flower pot filled with beans, rice, or some other dry good

How to Prepare the Game:

1.  Get started by painting your wooden dowels green.  I did this in two rounds - the majority of the dowel shafts first, and then the tops where my fingers had been afterwards.

2.  Next, prepare your flowers and leaves.  To do so, simply pin or staple your flower-shaped paper cut-out directly onto your felt and cut around the shape.  Repeat with all of your felt colours and then create an ’x’ cut in the middle of each flower by folding them in half both vertically and horizontally to make a small snip in the centre. Repeat this same process with your green craft foam and leaf-shaped paper cut-outs afterwards.

3.  With all of the pieces prepared, it’s time to assemble your flower stems.  Start by sliding a wooden dowel into the ‘x’ on your foam leaf and position it about 1 centimetre from the top of the dowel.  Use a little dab of hot glue above and below the leaf to hold it in place.  Now, add your button on the very top of the dowel.  Don’t be shy with the hot glue in this case!  You want there to be enough glue to ooze up a little and fill the holes of your buttons.  Press the button down firmly to ensure a good bond. 

4.  Allow your flower stems some time to set and then place them into the pot with the felt flower tops nearby. 

How to Play:

Explain to your little one that the stems have lost their flowers and that it’s his or her job to help put the flowers back together again.  Tell them that they’ll know which flower goes on which stem based on the colours they see - we want them to match!  Then let the game begin. 

Once your child has matched all of the flowers to the stems, invite him or her to play again - unbuttoning is great practice too!