How to Teaching Colors to Young Children

All you need is some patience and some creativity to make them learn colours. So go on, and have fun with them, while you teach them the colours.

* Dance

Stick coloured paper on square pieces of cardboard. Now arrange them on the floor and start your toddler's favourite song. Ask her to keep dancing till the music stops. Once it does, call out a colour and she has to step onto the square of that colour immediately.

* A Packet of Gems

Buy a packet of Gems and empty it into a bowl. Then ask your baby to sort out the colours one by one. The fun part is, once all have been separated, she can also be rewarded with a few of her favourite colours.

* Toys

Attach a magnet to the end of a pole, and ask your baby to pick up magnetic objects of a certain colour with it. Initially, maybe just calling out the colour name may not work. In that case hold up a piece of paper of that colour too.

* Baskets

Buy baskets of different colours, and teach your child which toy goes into which basket. For example, puzzles in the yellow one, books in the blue one etc. Repeat this a few days and thereafter tell her to first, say, clean up all her blue toys and then the yellow toys etc. Not only will this teach her the colours it will also make her feel that she is helping out too.

* Photos

Click a picture of your child in dresses of every colour possible, and then stick it on a cardboard, write out the colour name, and then hang that from the wall. Whenever possible, keep pointing and say things like, ‘see that is you on the beach in a pink swimming costume’ or ‘you in your white party dress’ etc.

* Shopping

Whenever you go shopping, point out the colours to your child. It can be a pair of blue jeans, a red ketchup bottle, yellow shampoo, or even the colours on a roadside hoarding.

* Food

Take your toddler to the kitchen. Whenever you use a particular food name the colour. For example, green lady's finger, yellow turmeric, white salt, brown bread etc. Do the same when you serve a food to her as well. Once in a while reverse it and ask her to name the colour instead.

* Nature Walks

Take a sheet of paper and stick small pieces of different coloured paper to it. Then take your child for a nature walk, and ask her to find one item of every colour that has been stuck on the paper. For example, green leaf, brown mud, red rose, white pebble etc.

* Books

Get story books with bright coloured pictures, and few words. Keep reading the same story to her, all the while mentioning the colours. After you feel that you have read the book for several times, ask her to name the colours instead.

* Painting

Use crayons and water colour to draw objects of a particular colour, and give her only that colour to paint with as well. For example, one day will be only a red day, where she gets to paint pictures of a rose, watermelon, fire engine, post box etc. This is a good familiarization activity. Just make sure you repeat the name of the colour each time she begins to paint a new picture.