Teaching Colors without Flashcards

Thank you Oriental Trading for collaborating with me, by sending product, for this educational post. As always all thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.

It doesn’t matter if you child doesn’t know their colors yet or if they have mastered them. I am listing fun ways to work on color and introducing mixing colors!

1. Read books about colors.

There are a lot of great options out there. Some are specific to color and some we read the pages and then discus the colors we see. Here are some of our favorites for discussing colors: The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, RAINDROPS A Shower Of Colors by Chieu Ann Urban, A Color Of His Own by Leo Lionni, Brown Bear Brown Bear by Eric Carle, Elmers Colors by David McKee & Pip The Little Penguin boy Roger Priddy to name a few.

2. Create a Colorful World

Oriental Trading has more than just party goods! There are so many amazing educational products. They have a new site for all of their educational items…. this isn’t just the place you shop for parties. Back to the colorful world.. we love using our Let’s Mix Color Paddles to see things in the room in a new color. She is also seeing that if she looks at a blue object with the yellow paddle it turns that object green. We also put two paddles together to see what color they make. It’s more advanced then learning colors. Since she already knows her colors… she even knows teal…I’m scaffolding her learning & we are moving on to something a bit more advanced.

Check out Learn365 for other educational goddies.

3. Paint

For beginners when painting talk about the colors they are using and if your child is starting to talk, ask you child to repeat you. For those who know their colors or are very close to mastering them, ask what each color is as they dip. You can even be silly and say, “Oh I love that blue” if they are using yellow. Allow them a chance to say, “No, that’s yellow!” If they don’t respond you can then say, “Nooo, mommy is being silly, that’s yellow, not blue.” For advanced kids work on mixing colors. For example: give them red and yellow and as they mix the colors ask them what color it made. 

4. Talk About Colors All Day

When Izzy and I run errands to the grocery store or Target I ask her about what we are seeing. “What is it?” “What color do you see?” “Let’s count them.” Learning colors is something she picked up on quickly because we introduced colors in so many aspects of her life.

XO Eryka