Somehow I got lucky {at least for now}, and my son is the type that loves to learn new things. He is finally in the stage where he likes to be quizzed with animal flash cards and will sit still long enough to complete a 48 piece puzzle all by himself. Did I mention he just turned two in February? Don’t be too jealous; we still have days that we only survive by watching “Nemo” or throwing EVERY SINGLE TOY on the floor.
Still, it is so wonderful to be able to entertain him periodically with something educational while I put the dishes away or we are waiting in the doctor’s office. One of the first things he enjoyed learning was colors. Since we started working on our colors last year, he is quick to point out when Momma has “ink” toes or a “boo” shirt. {Is it wrong that a small part of me hopes he never learns to say the colors correctly?}
Now I love a good Pinterest project as much as the next crafty mom, but should teaching colors to toddlers really require that much effort and cost? No. So I put together a little list of our favorite color activities from the past several months. These days we have lots of fun finding certain colored items around the house or sorting our toys into groups. Here are a few of the ways we reinforced our color fun early on, and many of them were things we already had around the house or picked up for free!
Thank you, Home Depot
Next time you’re at Home Depot, grab paint sample swatches in every color of the rainbow, toss them in your diaper bag, and boom… Instant color flash cards. This idea came to me one day when I dragged my sweet boy to Home Depot, “the manly store” as we refer to it, for paint samples for the powder room. As soon as Bubba saw that Momma was only putting grey squares in our cart, he quickly demanded blue ones. So naturally we snagged several in each color, some for home and some for the diaper bag, and began working on recognizing our colors everywhere we went. Plus, I never have to worry if they get bent or dirty. We just recycle the old ones and pick up new ones next time we are out. I can’t tell you how many times our pediatrician came in to find paint samples covering the floor of the exam room and my little one listing all the colors as he handed them back to me. We also eventually extended the learning by cutting out different shapes, adding numbers and letters, and matching toys to each color.
Splish, Splash, Yellow Bath!
In typical toddler fashion, my little one LOVES to play in the bath. He just does not care that enough time has passed that the water is ice cold. While he is spoiled beyond belief with hundreds {at least it feels like hundreds} of bath toys, we are always looking for new ways to have fun at bath time. Have you heard of Crayola Bath Drops? Y’all, we love them! For some reason James HATES bubble bath. He will not get in the tub if there is even a hint of bubbles. But dye the water purple, and he is pumped. We started our bath time color lessons by choosing a color and separating out some toys, dying the water, and discussing all of the items while we played. “Look Bubba, that duck is yellow like your bath!” Now we even add a little bath drop to our ice cube tray and toss in some ice cubes for added fun. And he is still figuring out why some items sink and some float, a fun extension. We also love watching the ice cubes melt and disappear. Some days we pick one color, and others I make various colored ice cubes for him to separate into cups before they melt.
Concrete Color Run
We may live in Texas where it seems like it is 100 degrees almost ALL the time, but I swear my toddler could not care less. He loves to be outside. Since I don’t want to walk to the park with sweat crawling down my back every day just to entertain him, we had to get a little creative with our outdoor activities. So I grabbed some sidewalk chalk and drew large different colored circles all over the driveway. Then I asked my little man to run from circle to circle when I called out the color. “Okay Bubba, find Momma the green circle!” He loves it, and as an added bonus it helps to keep him active and tire him out before nap time. This is yet another activity that you can extend to shapes, letters, and numbers. Or if you are artistic, which I am absolutely not, you can even draw various animals or objects and work on vocabulary.
Taste the Rainbow
I have been told there are parents out there that can still get their toddler to eat almost anything. I believe these exist about as much as I believe in unicorns or the Loch Ness Monster. But just for fun, let’s say you are one of those magical unicorn parents that can still actually get their toddler to eat something other than mac and cheese. Before James got too picky, we had a lot of fun creating rainbow meals and seeing how many colors we could incorporate into our lunch or dinner. He also loves fruit, which is a fun easy way to add various colors to a meal since there are so many options. If we are working on a particular color, consider doing an entire meal that color {as much as possible}. The nice thing about color meals is that they encourage healthy toddler eating habits too!
There are so many options for color lessons out there. What are some fun ways you found to work on learning colors with your little ones?
