As promised this week we are going to discuss how to introduce and expand your child’s knowledge of colors.  We’ll break these up into three basic levels of learning with some ideas of what you can do with your little ones in each level.  Let’s get to it…

Introductory Level

The introductory level of learning colors can be started while your littles are infants and continued through toddlerhood or until they are ready for the next level.  The easiest way to do this is to point out colors of everything around you and things in your Idaho Falls Preschool.  Your shirt is blue, the plate is green, the milk is white; these are all examples of things you can incorporate into your everyday life.  Once your little one can repeat back to you some of the names of a few colors you can continue on to the next level of learning.

Intermediate Level

The intermediate level of learning colors includes begin able to differentiate colors from each other. There are many activities that you can do to promote identifying the colors from each other in your home or that can be done at an Idaho Falls Preschool.  One fun activity  is making up scavenger hunts to find items in your home of each of the primary (red,yellow,blue) and secondary colors(purple,orange,green).  Make a list of the colors you want them to find items for and let them loose.  When they find an item with the corresponding color, have them either check off the item or draw a picture of the item they found.  When your child can name all of the basic colors, move on to the advanced level.

Advanced Level

The advanced level of learning colors has multiple facets.  This level includes learning advanced colors like maroon and navy, sorting like colors and learning how to make colors.  This level of learning can be started with young children, but will most likely not be mastered until the elementary school years.  Starting with a large box of crayons is a great way to show and sort advanced colors.  Your little ones can group like colors while you help name them.  Another great color sorting activity (and one of my personal favorites) is to have your children help you sort the laundry into piles of like colors.  A learning chore… my favorite!  To see how colors are made you can take some food coloring and add a few drops of two colors to a ziplock bag filled with shaving cream. Have the kids mash the bag around and watch as they create new color.

Color is found everywhere in our world and is one of the most fundamental areas children will learn.  As I like to say, make it fun and the little ones will come.  So get our there today and have some fun helping your littles learn about colors!