Montessori Inspired Color Matching Wheel

In preparing to teach Curls through his preschool years, I am always looking for learning resources that can be made easily at home.  I get my inspiration and ideas from many different learning philosophies and programs, taking what works best for my children.  Over the last week, I was looking at resources for teaching colors, when I saw these really cool Montessori inspired color matching wheels, and I thought, 'I could make that right now!'

Now, you can easily go online and find some similar color wheels already designed and free to print.  My only issue with that is that I prefer something a bit more sturdy, and I don't really like schlepping myself to the office store to laminate one or two things.  So I decided to just take a half hour to make some myself with a cardboard pizza lid, clothespins I had on hand, and my own paints.  Bonus in making this yourself is that you get to choose which colors your little learner gets to work with, so if they are having any trouble discerning different shades of a color or just haven't quite got the difference between blue and green, you can choose those colors to focus on.

First, I traced around a whipped topping lid on the cardboard a few times.

Then I cut out the circles with plain ole scissors.

I painted both sides of the clothespins and the corresponding section of the wheel.

After everything dried, I clipped the clothespins on and put it all in a zip loc bag to store.

With another circle I am going to do the same thing with some different colors, as I only have eight colors on this one.  On the other two I am going to to the numbers 0-9 and 10-20.  So go for it, eat some pizza!  After you're finished you will have the base material for four (or more!) matching wheel activities!