The Olympics are bright and vibrant with colors filling the days of the Games so today let’s fill the day with some Olympic color activities for kids.
There is no doubt both kids and adults play with colors. Are the ads on TV in black and white? Are signs that warn of danger and how to move safely in traffic in grey and brown? Do flowers come all in the same color? Even nature is rich with color. Color can be a part of your child’s day, both at play and helping with tasks, in ways that are easy and fun.
A very simple game is I Spy A Color. Either you or your child can choose a color and an item of that color and invite the other to play. “I spy something yellow,” is a challenge to name yellow things in a room or space. A reply might be, “Is it the book on the table?” Guesses continue until one of you gets the object. Continue taking turns and changing colors. In our kitchen, it’s the yellow gloves for washing dishes.
Find a Rainbow is another color game. This can be played anywhere. You say a color and your child finds something that color. Name as many colors as are appropriate for your child. For young ones, this may only be three or four. For older kids, you might do basic colors and several others, like grey, brown, beige, turquoise, etc. Make up a few silly words or find something multi-colored that needs lots of names, like orangey-purple-greenish for some color fun. Kids can choose the colors and you can find something. Make a few mistakes so your child has to correct you. This usually adds some giggles.
The Olympic rings are blue, black, red, yellow, and green. Just the same as ones in a box of food coloring, except for black. Not all Olympic color activities explode and bubble with color, but this one does. Spoon some baking soda into a pie tin or other shallow container. In four small dishes, like the pots from apple sauce pour in a couple of spoonfuls of vinegar. Add a few drops of blue to one pot of vinegar, and red to a second one, yellow to a third, and green to the last. With an eye dropper, kids can squeeze up one color of vinegar solution and squirt it onto the baking soda. Suddenly, the color starts to bubble and spread. Kids repeat this for all four colors. They can try and make a black ring by mixing some of the colors. The result is sort of black.
Include color in tasks and chores around the house. Sort the laundry into colors. Unload of one color dishes from the dishwasher. Then, do another color until it is empty. Kids can pick up all of one color toy from the floor to put away. Hint: choose the color of the most toys on the floor first. Once they are put away, it doesn’t look like so much left to do.
Colors can influence our mood. Learning colors is really complicated with so many shades to go with only a few names. Can you add some fun and learning to your child’s day with Olympic color activities and play?