Five Creative Ways To Teach Colors

Our eyes are attracted to colorful things. Color gives life to paintings, drawings, photographs and television. If everything were in black and white there wouldn’t be much to characterize what we see. Here are five great suggestions for teaching your children about colors:

1. Teach colors through flash cards. Flash cards contain pictures of items in various colors. For example, if it was a picture of a bear it would be brown. The colors are shown as they would be in the real world. You wouldn’t want a card that shows a yellow sky or a red tree. The colors on a flash card are very bright so this is a good place to start. Say each color and let the child repeat after you.

2. Kids also learn colors through food. Foods come in a variety of vibrant colors. When your child asks for something to eat, tell them the color of what they are eating. Some varieties of foods, like apples and peppers, come in many colors, which also teaches the kids that objects can have more than one color. Use the basic names for colors like red, green, blue, and so on. Saying blue-green or orange-red may be too confusing for the kids.

3. Use paints to teach colors. Take a giant piece of poster board and lay it on a drop cloth. Let the children dip their hands in the paint and create handprints on the paper. Call out each color after they make a hand print. Wash their little hands and start over. Kids like to be messy so this teaching tool is both fun and educational.

4. Take your child outside. As you pass trees, stones, grasses and cars, identify the colors. After you have seen a wide variety of colors, point to something and ask your child what color it is. This exercise may be slow going at first because colors in nature don’t appear in the same hues as they do on flash cards or in a paint set.

5. Play games with your kids that involve colors. Use a pole with a magnet attached to a paper clip on the end of a string. Have fish or some other shapes of objects on the floor with magnets attached to them. When you call out a color, see if your child can pick up the pieces with that color. If saying the name of the color doesn’t work at first, hold up a piece of paper displaying the color you want them to fish for. Not only will they learn about colors, but also hand-to-eye coordination.

There are more games that you can teach your child. For example, they can find the colors around the house while playing a scavenger game. The importance of color recognition will become important when they learn about stop signs and other meanings for colors.

Teaching colors doesn’t have to be boring. Inject a bit of fun into the process! At a young age, kids are a blank slate. Fill them up with good learning.