This is how I taught my toddler to identify colors
I couldn’t wait to introduce the beautiful world of colors to my toddler.
Generally, children learn to identify colors by 18 months. They can name different colors by the age of 2.5–3 years. However, sometimes it can be frustrating for parents as teaching colors is not as easy as other activities, say like teaching numbers.
Why does teaching color seems complicated?
“Max can speak 1 to 10 and few alphabets, but when it comes to color identification, whether I show him a blue object or green, he always defaults all objects as blue” says my colleague, Melissa, who is a mom to three-year-old Max.
Teaching your toddler to identify a toy, shoes, or names of the vehicles may seem less complicated than teaching colors as the latter is an abstract concept. Color is a visual perceptual property of any object.
When it came to teaching my son colors, I decided to adopt the following methods:
Teach with everyday activities
I started teaching my son colors as soon as he turned two. Toddlers usually love bright colors. I started with the basic colors first: Red, green, yellow, blue. The primary goal was to let him understand the concept of these basic colors before going beyond.
To stimulate these young brains is a tedious task and demands patience and creativity.
1) Platter a colorful meal
I involved my two-year-old in cooking and shopping at par with his age level.
While cooking I usually kept a few raw vegetables in front of my son. He loves to touch and play with different vegetables.
When he would ask me which vegetable that is, I’d say the name of the vegetable with its color. Say, red tomato.
As I served different foods, I introduced the food items with their color. Like green vegetables, white rice, brown bread, red pepper, yellow lentil soup, etc.
2) Songs and rhymes
According to studies, there’s a strong influence of music on a child’s development.
That’s what I did!
I created a YouTube playlist of audio-visual animated songs and rhymes teaching shades and watched them with my son.
Children tend to remember rhymes easily as it provides a practical example to a certain extent. This exercise worked wonders for my son!
3) Compare identical objects
Your toddler is still learning new words every day. If you compare two different objects while teaching color, you would make the process more complicated.
It will be easier for a child to distinguish the colors of a red ball and a green balloon/ball than a red ball and green sweater. Comparing two identical objects will make the differentiation between the colors more clear.
So that’s what I did! I compared two tops, with the color — red shirt, white shirt. My son started to distinguish colors quite effectively with this exercise.
4) Games and puzzles
Other things that are close to children’s hearts are games and toys. I got my son a few attractive and brightly colored toys, puzzle games, alphabet blocks, color matching, and memory games, etc.
I let them play and explore the world of colors while learning alphabets, numbers. This is a very passive but effective way of introducing colors during playtime.
5) DIY color books
How interesting would it be to give a modern touch to traditional learning! On weekends, I often asked my toddler to collect the objects of the same color and then ask him to draw them in a color picture book.
We even took the photo prints of the objects with the same color and organized them in our little scrapbook. My kid will definitely love to see this self-made book again and again.
6) Hand painting
Toddlers learn by touching various objects, more interestingly, of different colors.
To enhance my son’s sensory skills and creativity, I engaged him in finger painting and hand painting.
This pulled his attention to different bright colors and he was more interested to learn them.
I would drape a clean vinyl cloth on the table where he would be painting. This would help me rinse the place easily and quickly.
7) Color with crayons
I would let my son pick the crayon of his choice and scribble with it on the paper, then label his art with the name of the color. This would keep him engaged in a fun (screen-free) activity while teaching him about the world of color!
8) Favourite dressings
I took advantage of the ‘favorite dressing’ phenomenon of my child and tagged his favorite dressing with names of their colors.
My son loves a red tee and blue pants. Whenever he points out his favorite clothes, I always tell him that even today you will wear the same red tee and blue pants. With repetition, he has learned at least these two colors very easily.
9) Get close to nature
Whenever we are outdoors, my son loves to observe various things and animals around and asks me bundles of questions.
I don’t miss this opportunity to teach him many new things. He often points out and asks me the colors of the dogs on the street and this way he learns colors when outdoors.
Getting closer to nature is another beautiful way to teach colors to your kid. It is one of the biggest modes of teaching I used for my son. I started off by introducing the colors of leaves, tree trunk, green grass, colorful butterflies, and various birds like a green parrot, grey pigeon, and so on. Slowly and steadily, my son started to understand the colors around him.
10) Activity-based learning kits
You could also try this with the help of an activity learning kit such as Flintoclass@HOME.
Flintoclass is a research-based learning program that provides hands-on activities and pre-recorded guidance sessions to children between the ages of 1.5 to 6 years. All the materials are shipped directly to your doorstep!
The Flintoclass@HOME curriculum is research-driven, child-centric, and aims to ensure that every child is provided with the best resources during the vital stages of development. In fact, the curriculum is a culmination of methodologies including Playway, John Dewey, Waldorf, and Multiple Intelligence.
As a member of the team, I can vouch for the number of parents who absolutely love this program for their children. Here’s how it works:
Flintoclass@HOME follows a blended learning approach with pre-recorded interactive sessions and hands-on activities. The monthly kit gets delivered with daily activities, instructions, revision materials, and a parent dashboard to track a child’s progress. The activities in the box can help your child develop many skills while learning about a variety of concepts including colors, shapes, numbers, and more!
Related: Everything you need to know about Flintoclass@HOME Learning Program
These were the 10 sure-shot fun learning ways that I adopted to teach my son colors. They also helped improve his motor skills, hand-eye coordination and control, and language.
How did you introduce colors to your toddler? Let me know!
