You can choose from many activities when helping your child learn colors. Your child will quickly learn color names as you work them into everyday conversation. Take advantage of opportunities to discuss color with your child as you go through your daily routine, such as "Let's eat some red strawberries," "Isn't the sky blue today?" and "It's time to put on your green pajamas." Start your preschooler with the primary colors--red, blue, yellow and green--and then progress to secondary colors, such as purple, brown and orange.
Step 1
Play a "spot the color" game when in the car for long periods. Assign children to count the number of cars they see of a given color, such as silver, white, blue or red.
Step 2
Let your child help make fruit and vegetable salads, and discuss the colors of all the ingredients. Try making a "rainbow" salad that includes as many colors as possible.
Step 3
Provide your child with finger paints, watercolors, sidewalk chalk and colored modeling clay so she can learn about colors while playing, suggests the website Just Mommies.
Step 4
Keep crayons and coloring books handy for times when you need a quiet game. Look for coloring books in which children must follow specific coloring directions to see a picture emerge.
Step 5
Purchase a color matching game or make your own to develop your child's ability to distinguish colors and learn color names.
Step 6
Engage you child in an "I Spy" game focused on colors whenever you are taking a walk, standing in line at the grocery store or waiting in the doctor's office.
Step 7
Read books about colors with your preschooler. "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See" by Bill Martin and "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle are two classics that teach colors in an engaging way.
Step 8
Use food coloring in experiments to show how two colors mixed together make a new color. Allow your child to help when using food coloring for cupcake frosting or dying boiled eggs.
Step 9
Help your child write free verse poems about different colors with titles such as "Pink Is ...," "Green Is ..." or "Black Is ..." Encourage your child to think of as many items as possible that could be described in each poem.
Step 10
Help your child make a color scrapbook by stapling paper together. For a "blue" scrapbook, you and your child can go through old magazines and catalogs to find pictures of items that are blue. Let your child cut them out and glue them on paper. Cover the scrapbook with blue construction paper.
Step 11
Turn one day each week into a color celebration, suggests the website Creative With Kids. For example, on "purple" day, each member of the family can wear something purple and eat a purple snack such as grapes.
Step 12
Teach your child about color shades and values when she has mastered the basics of colors. Use a 64-count box of crayons to teach your child that colors can be light or dark, soft or intense.
Things You'll Need
- Colorful salad ingredients
- Finger paints
- Watercolors
- Sidewalk chalk
- Colored modeling clay
- Coloring books
- Color matching game
- Children's books about colors
- Food coloring
- Old magazines and catalogs
- 64-count box of crayons
