Pirate treasure can be any color and while learning about colors is not specifically part of kindergarten readiness, it’s a great thinking–and pirate–activity that really exercises brains. How about a search for a pirate treasure of each color?
While a pirate’s favorite color is gold kids can go on a pirate hunt to find something red, orange, yellow, green, blue, or purple. Some kids might also like to find something black, white, grey, and brown. Gold and silver might be fairly easy as well to make a dozen colors!
For the hunt, parents and caregivers can make a treasure list with dots of each color and ask kids to go find each color one at a time. Kids that are ready may want to have the word printed beside each color and check them off themselves. This can be easy or tricky depending on the interest and level of each child, as long as it’s fun and playful.
Being able to attach the correct word to each color is a complex process that needs a great deal of experiences. It is not simple matching. Kids need to see many examples of all colors and gradually they are able to sort out which ones belong together in a group. Each color has so many different objects and a variety of shades that it is difficult to match the correct word. Just think of how many things can be yellow: the sun, a lemon, traffic signs, shirts, balls, a dandelion, and Big Bird. Yellow can be pale like butter or deep like gold. Learning colors takes lots of experiences and having fun makes it easier to remember.
What color treasures can your pirate find?