Colours For kids :- Teaching colours to Toddler or preschoolers

Do you ever wonder why we put so much emphasis in the toddler and preschool years on teaching colors and shapes? I mean, why put so much focus on colors and shapes rather than letters and numbers?

So let’s start by stating the fact that our world is literally made up of colors and shapes. That is what we see all around us!

A house has a different shape from a tree, which has a different shape from a person or a banana. And the cars, flowers, and street signs around us come in many different colors.

As it turns out, colors and shapes are a key way that we describe and categorize our world. Children will notice that a red flower is different from a yellow one, and that a round bread roll has a different shape than a square slice of bread.

Verbal communication: Teaching children about colors and shapes is a great way to give them some vocabulary for describing the world around them. This opens up new and exciting avenues for verbal communication.

Sorting and classifying: As children learn to identify colors and shapes, they can sort and classify objects in around them based on these attributes.

Letters and numbers: The written symbols we use for letters are numbers are really just shapes. As children develop proficiency at learning shapes such as squares and circles, they are developing the classification and visual discrimination skills to distinguish between ‘k’ and ‘x’ or between ‘p’ and ‘g.’

Children begin to notice colours at a very young age. Parents can, therefore, start teaching the concept of colours by the time their little ones turn 18 months old. Babies as young as 18 months may not be able to communicate verbally, but can easily point to different colours once they are introduced to them. Learning and identifying is considered a milestone in their cognitive development. Being able to distinguish colours helps build the cognitive pathways between visual cues and words. Therefore, helping children learn colours is essential at a very early age.

Your young one’s ability to recognise different colours begins to develop way before he is one year old. At the same time, he starts to notice differences in shapes, texture, and size and picks up the similarities

How to Teach Colours With Everyday Activities

Teaching colours during everyday activities and routine is the best way to reinforce the concept of colours that is taught to kids in their preschools. Children have a natural affinity toward brightly coloured objects, especially red; hence most of their toys are strikingly colourful. Showing them an object, say, a ball, using the word “colour” along with the name of the object is a good way to begin teaching them colours. Therefore, instead of saying ‘this is red’, the better approach would be to say ‘this is a ball, and its colour is red’. The same can be done with different coloured balls.

 Easy Ways to Teach Colours to Preschoolers

These ways to teach colours to preschoolers are fun and can help you teach your kid the concept of colours effectively.

Modelling Clay

Activities involving modelling clay is a great tool to teach colours in kindergarten. Modelling clay is highly engaging while being endlessly fun. Children can learn how to recognise colours and build different things out of the same colour. They can also mix colours to see what they get!

Colour Matching Games

Colour matching games are great to teach primary colours to preschoolers. You can make coloured cards out of any cardboard and place them on the floor or table, and get your kid to pick up matching colours. The same can be done with coloured blocks or balls with each day dedicated to a different colour.

Finger Painting

Finger painting is an immensely fun activity to teach colours to 2 to 3-year-old kids. Children of that age are old enough to paint with colours, and you can start with one colour every day. The activity would be to let them have fun colouring while they tell you what colour it is. You can also try vegetables or thread painting too.

Colour Jigsaw Puzzle

Make a simple jig-saw puzzle out of cardboard strips of the same colour and let the kids pick up similar colour and put them all together.

Colouring Books

Colouring in books is the simplest way to get kids to learn colours. Ask your child what coloured crayon he is using for each page when he’s having fun colouring.

Stacking Colorful Rings

Stacking rings help develop eye-hand coordination, encourage problem-solving, and teach color recognition and size sequencing. The thing is, there are countless options on the market, and it can be difficult to tell the difference or determine the best choice for your child. 

Board books 

There are numerous children’s books to teach children about color form. Like toys geared for children, children’s books are a natural opportunity to not only teach children the differences between the colors and to identify them, but to also forget that connection between the written words and the colors they represent. The best children’s books to teach color combine a child’s interest, with a great story, and colorful illustrations making reading experience completely enjoyable. 

Flash cards

Since learning colors is such an important part of every child’s early education, schools and parents often turn to the more educational minded color flashcards. Color flashcards run a range from just focusing on color to inducing the words along with color as pre reading skills. Often color flashcards use shapes and teach basic counting skills along with color recognition

In my next blog I will be sharing all about different types of colours best for kids and activities related to it. as well as some product reviews too. if u have any doubt or suggestions to related to this feel free to connect me on facebook ... like my fb page and join our fb group for regular and useful updates