Yesterday, while working on another kindergarten readiness and bug learning activity blog I saw this fantastic photo on Play, Create, Explore’s facebook page.
Isn’t this pink worm cool? Or maybe that should be hot, as in hot pink! In any case, it’s perfect for talking about colors.
Learning colors is a challenging thinking skill. First, there’s many variations of each and every color name: blue can be pale, dark, greeny or kind of purple and it’s still called blue. Second, very different objects can be the same color, such as green trees, green olives and green grapes. Third, not everybody agrees all the time on what to call a particular color. Case in point: Our house is tan. My son insists our house is pink and explains that it is “a man pink”. And fourth, some of the words are hard for little kids to say, like lellow, wed and puple. For kids trying to get the right name of a color is like trying to hit a moving target that changes, or trying to catch a butterfly.
In order to learn colors, kids need to see many examples for each and every color. Gradually, they figure out which shades go with which name. Did you know that asking kids about colors is often included on kindergarten readiness checklists? This gives teachers an idea of a child’s level of thinking skills. Kids who are having difficulty learning colors may be struggling with other concepts, too. There is no doubt that learning colors is a challenge for young brains.
Even if kindergarten is a long way off for your child, talk about colors and help your child notice them. There will be lots of opportunities for this in a day. You might be able to say “Do you want to wear your red shirt like a strawberry or your green shirt like the grass?” Or, “We don’t want to catch the red bus, we want one with a blue stripe.” All these little bits accumulate to support your child to learn about colors. What colors can you find in your day for your child’s learning fun?