Colours for children: Teaching colours to your babies and toddlers

How can you teach kids about colours? If you are asking yourself the same question, maybe by this article, you will find your answers.  

From 1 year, your child has undoubtedly taken notice of all the various aspects of their environment, but you are unsure of how to assist them in making sense of it all.

Thankfully, training your babies and toddlers to recognize colours is not that hard. This may be a pleasant and interesting learning experience for you and your child. 

Let’s get started. 

1. Tips when teaching colours to your kids

• Start with primary colours

Introduce your child to the most basic colours (red, blue, yellow). When they get used to those colours, then you move on to secondary colours: green, orange, purple, black, white, brown, and gray.

How to apply this basic color learning to everyday life?

Ask your child questions such as:

- Do you want to wear this red shirt?

- Do you see the blue car on the other side of the road?

• Focus on one color at a time and introduce another once the previous one is mastered.

Learning about colours is also an iterative process. Make sure your child is practicing with each color one at a time, then, when he is able to remember that color and recognize it, move on to another color.

Generally speaking, it's a good idea to just introduce one new color per week. Teaching one color per week, so we can have: Blue Week, Red Week, Yellow Week, and so on, which can be entertaining. Plan your activities according to the color of the week. You can think about wearing a red shirt/ hat, painting in red color only, eating red-color food: tomato, watermelon…

• Don't push it; color recognition takes time.

The learning process always takes time to adapt and get used to. Don't put too much pressure on your child to recognize colours and things quickly.

2. Activities to teach colours to babies and toddlers

• Learn colours by books

Books are amazing teaching materials, so parents can use color-focused books and make use of color highlighting while reading.

If you walk into baby bookstores or search for baby books online, you will be overwhelmed by hundreds of books on how to recognize colours and numbers.

Let me recommend you some books that I bought for my baby:

Look and learn - Colors 

 

My first Colors 

 

 

• Learn colours with toys and teaching materials

Building blocks

Building blocks a quick method for your kid to compare colours. Since all of the blocks are the same shape, your toddler can concentrate mostly on the variations in their colours.

By utilizing just two blocks, you can ask your kids simple questions like “This one is blue. This one is yellow. Then tell me, which one is blue?" When your child can recognize the blue block, ask her/him to rearrange other blocks into categories. 

Matching eggs

Color sorting makes a fantastic matching game. Children learn colours through matching colored eggs, but they also develop problem-solving abilities, a sense of cause and effect, numeracy skills, focus and attention, fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, just to name some.

 

Rainbow stacker

Parents can take advantage of the Rainbow stacker to both teach their children about colours at the age of 1, and from the age of 2 onwards, this toy can become a tool to help develop problem-solving abilities, stimulate children's creative thinking.

 

• Learn colours by drawing

Children always have a sense of curiosity and love experimenting with different colours, materials, and textures. As parents, you need to encourage your child to draw and paint by giving them safe, non-toxic art supplies. Drawing and coloring not only help children learn colours but also help them develop their fine motor skills, cognitive capabilities, creativity, and imagination.

All you need are a coloring book and a basic box of crayons, markers, or colored pens. Concentrate on using a single color at a time while saying its name out loud to your child as they color in order to help them develop a link between the color and its name.

Painting pictures

Loose part painting

Decorate things as your wish with Melli's Kids loose part painting set!

 

• Learn colours from everything around!

Cooking & eating

As you feed your youngster food, describe the color of each item. By repeating the connection with each bite, you can help children relate the color to a certain meal. You can use natural colorful food or make it more fun with food coloring. 

Singing color songs

Try teaching different colours with a song. The kid’s verbal memory will be stimulated by fascinating sounds and images in this way. You can search for "Color Song", then dance and enjoy catchy rhyming lyrics with your babies and toddlers. 

 

Label things with colours

Your child will learn the colours quickly if they are repeated throughout the day while engaging in various activities.

 Let your babies and toddlers dress up in colorful clothes!

Each morning, while helping your youngster get dressed and ready for the day, tell them about colours by something like, "Today you'll be wearing a red coat and blue pants, oh it’s a great choice!”.

Match colours in nature

Outdoor play, picnics or simply going for a walk are enjoyable activities that help children to learn the beautiful natural colours of space and objects. These are also chances for the whole family to relieve stress and strengthen family bonds. Tell your kids about the blue sky, blue sea, green and yellow leaves, then they learn more rather than just colours. 

 

Teaching your child recognition of colours and participating as your child learns to appreciate and interact with the variety of colours all around them is fun. Learning colours can be quite challenging for young children, but you can make color lessons exciting for both you and your child by incorporating them into your daily routines with a little preparation and imagination.