How and when to teach your child colors. How to teach children to distinguish colors: effective methods, interesting ideas and recommendations
Acquaintance with color is perhaps one of the first ideas about the world around us, which is accessible even to very small child. And this is understandable, because according to experts, a baby can recognize colors from two to four months. But, despite the fact that color perception is inherent in a child from birth, correctly naming and distinguishing colors requires targeted training. At home, such training can be carried out even with infants, since passive knowledge eventually turns into active if it is constantly encouraged by an adult. Moreover, this is simply necessary for the baby, since early learning of color perception enriches knowledge about surrounding objects and promotes sensory (sensory) development. Teachers draw the attention of parents to the fact that a child can confuse colors at an early age, since full knowledge of color scheme is established in him only in older preschool age. Therefore, such gaps should not worry parents. The main thing they should strive for is how to teach a child to distinguish colors correctly.
Each age has its own color scheme!
Before starting home schooling, it would be a good idea for parents to know about the age-related stages of color recognition in children, so as not to inadvertently make mistakes. Teachers emphasize that the color palette is revealed to the child gradually, so you need to start with primary colors, then move on to their shades. Parents will be interested to know that the baby first perceives colors in warm colors(red, yellow, orange), so it is better if the first toys for wakefulness are of this color. Then the color spectrum expands; by the end of the first year, the baby can already distinguish cold tones (green, blue objects). With proper training, the baby moves through the steps of the color palette as follows:
- at an early age, children should know four primary colors (red, yellow, blue, green) and additional contrasting ones (black, white);
- When teaching younger preschool children, orange and purple are added to the main ones, but most importantly, the baby becomes clear not only the colors themselves, but also some of their shades (for example, blue sky, pink flower, gray wolf);
- average preschool age characterized by the fact that five-year-old children learn to differentiate shades, for example, light green, dark green, emerald;
- older preschoolers not only confidently name colors, but also actively use their shades in creative activities (light brown fur on a dog, dark gray cloud).
Important: It should be taken into account that six-year-old children love to independently create various shades of colors when mixing paints; they know tones well, for example, crimson, lilac, turquoise. Therefore, there should always be paints in the house for preschoolers’ creative activities.
Experts say that teaching a child to name and distinguish colors is not at all difficult if you approach it correctly. homeschooling. You don’t even have to organize any special classes, but use all sorts of techniques in the environment. In pedagogy, there are many techniques with which it is easy and simple to teach a preschool child at an early age to distinguish between primary and secondary colors:
- Everyday communication. Every moment of a child's life can become effective method training: preparing your favorite salad with your mother, for which you cut up a red tomato, a green cucumber, and a yellow pepper. Or on the way from kindergarten home you can count all the red cars passing by. Or, while walking, make a bouquet of autumn leaves(red, yellow, orange, green).
- Organization of a “colored” day in the family. An adult deliberately creates a situation where a child in the house constantly encounters things of a certain color. For example, a yellow day for children suggests that on this day everyone in the house uses yellow towels and napkins, yellow dishes, dresses in yellow clothes, and in the play corner there are only yellow toys. Even food can be saturated with yellow color, for example, apples, bananas, cheese, butter, scrambled eggs. Experts praise this technique and say that it brings tangible results. True, only creatively minded parents can use it, since together with the baby one must sincerely be surprised by the same color in many household things, constantly name it, read funny rhymes, and sing songs. For example, “yellow is like the sun, the sun is laughing in the sky!”, “a dandelion wears a yellow sundress.” For variety, this technique can be supplemented by observing objects on the street: the clothes of passers-by, shop windows, cars, traffic lights.
- Creative activities. All adults know that preschool children love to draw, design, sculpt, and cut out. Creative activities can be an excellent tool - a hint on how to learn colors with your child. The main thing is to make sure that your home corner always has paints, pencils, paper, plasticine, and a variety of construction sets. Relatives and their preschoolers can create there, fantasize, make crafts, build houses and cars. At the same time, the adult constantly consults with the child what color this or that detail will be, encourages him to repeat the names of the colors that are needed to create images, for example, yellow-green colors when drawing nature, blue for the sky and sea.
- Didactic games on color and shape. Educational games and toys are an invaluable tool for quickly teaching children to recognize colors in a playful way. Nowadays, many similar toys are offered that parents can purchase at home play corner. The selection principle should be as follows: accessibility, simple rules, attractiveness. For home activities, games like grouping “Lay out correctly” (shapes are grouped according to the corresponding color and shape), games like lotto “Color, shape, size”, “Close the window in the house” (laying out small shapes on a large card), games according to the type of composition of the spectrum “Gather a bouquet”, “Flower - seven-flowered” and the like. The good thing about these toys is that you can make them yourself at home from waste material(boxes, plastic cups, paper, cardboard).
- Children's books with illustrations and tasks. Colorful pictures always attract the attention of children. How to teach a child to distinguish colors using books? Together with your child, you can look at the illustrations for the works you read and discuss them in terms of color, for example, how the characters are dressed, how the illustrator conveys their mood with the color scheme. Developmental books with various tasks and “color” rhymes are popular among preschool children, for example, books by Olesya Zhukova “Learning Colors and Shapes”, Galina Shalaeva “Colors”, Evgenia Yurchenko “Learning Colors” and other authors.
- Story games . Every child at home has favorite story toys (dolls, bears, cars, cubes, buckets, scoops, etc.), which can be useful to teach children to remember the name of a color in a playful way. To this end, you can captivate children with very simple game plots, for example, “Let’s build each colored car its own garage,” “Visit your favorite bear,” “Let’s cut out paper doll dress made of colored paper", "Let's prepare a treat from colored ice" and others like that. The main thing is the parents' creative attitude towards the nursery story game, because playing out the plot will help unobtrusively consolidate the colors and their shades. In them we not only learn colors, but also develop speech, form intelligence, the child acquires new knowledge, empathizes, and shows emotions.
Important: Children perceive color information well if they have full speech, mental and emotional development.
Learn colors in the game!
For loving parents It will not be a problem how to teach a child to distinguish colors if they constantly play with it. Currently, many games have been created that are aimed at expanding and consolidating knowledge about the world around us, including colors. The most popular and favorite games for children to use to teach colors:
"Inserts"
Insert games are accessible even to small children. With their help, he not only recognizes color, but also develops fine motor skills, enriches knowledge about the shape and size of objects. The rule of the game for many liners is the same: in a container with slots geometric shape you need to insert figures that match the color, shape and size. To make children more interested, toys are presented in the form of three-dimensional houses, boxes, flowers, trains or flat frames. A parent can choose inserts based on the age and interests of their child. You can build the game yourself by cutting geometric holes in the box and covering each side with colored paper. Small toys, construction parts, and mosaics are useful for pushing inside. You cannot use very small or sharp parts; it is better to play with homemade inserts together with your child. Now frames - Montessori inserts, which can be purchased in specialized stores, have become very popular.
"Pick a Pair"
We learn colors using “Match a Pair” games, which are usually liked by little children. With proper organization, in the future the baby can play independently, which greatly facilitates the task of parents in quickly learning. The rules of the game are simple and accessible to kids. You need to match an object of a certain color to another similarly colored one, for example, roofs for houses, scoops for buckets, bows for dresses, or geometric shapes of the same color: circles, squares, triangles, etc. To maintain interest in this kind of games, you can offer the following option: the child closes his eyes, and the adult “makes a mistake” in selecting the pairs. All errors must be corrected.
"Fun Mosaic"
Quite an unusual game for older children who have experience in drawing geometric shapes. You can play together, but it is more interesting to play for several players. Therefore, such a game can be included in family leisure. The rules of the game are simple, but require attention; you need to start drawing as an adult. Placed in the center of the table large leaf papers and colored markers of different colors. The first participant in the center of the sheet draws any geometric figure: rhombus, square, triangle, paints it with one color. The next participant draws his own geometric figure of a different color to one of the sides of the first figure; all participants perform such actions. The rule of the game is that none of the pieces should touch the sides of another piece of the same color. The winner is the one who completes the “mosaic” with the last drawing.
"An old fairy tale in a new way!"
Another unusual game for middle and older preschoolers who are good at retelling, as the game is dynamic and requires attention and ingenuity. The rules are as follows: an adult selects a fairy tale or short story that is well known to children. Then he invites the child to “color” all the characters or objects encountered during the retelling with one specific color, for example, blue. This is what the Three Little Pigs fairy tale would look like:
Once upon a time there were three blue pig. Three brothers. Everyone is the same height, round, blue ones, with the same blue funny tails. Even their names were similar. The piglets' names were Nif-Nif, Nuf-Nuf and Naf-Naf. All summer the piglets tumbled in blue grass, warmed up on blue sunshine, basked in blue puddles. But then autumn has come...
When children learn to retell fairy tales well in this way, you can offer new option: An adult “paints” characters or objects with unusual colors, e.g. green wolf meets yellow cap in pink forest, and the preschooler must find mistakes. At the initial stage, you can highlight unusual places with your voice.
"Colored Glasses"
The game will appeal to children of all ages. An adult makes glasses of different colors from thick paper. Then invites the child to choose any of them. This will be a guide for finding objects painted in the same shade. According to the rules, the player must collect together objects similar to colored glasses in a short period, for example, 30 - 40 seconds. For example, red glasses - a red book, a doll in a red dress, a red car, a cube, a ball, etc.
For older preschoolers, you can make the game more difficult by focusing not on the points, but on the teacher’s instructions: find two toys blue, one yellow, one green, two red. Such a task will help to include all mental processes in the interaction, since the child needs to be attentive in order to remember the instructions, understand the task, and complete it correctly.
"Rainbow - Arc"
Preschoolers of all ages will undoubtedly be interested in playing "rainbow" with a varied palette of colors and their shades. You can play in different ways:
- Together with the children, cut out colorful semicircles of the rainbow different sizes: large - for playing in a large space, small - at the table. The adult invites the child to correct mistakes in the incorrectly laid out “big” rainbow, and to color the “small” rainbow. To remember the color spectrum, mnemonic verses are used: " TO every ABOUT hunter AND wants Z nah, G de WITH goes F adhan" or " TO ak ABOUT once AND ak - Z lantern G tin WITH broke F onar".
- Board game"Rainbow" for children from three years old. Useful for children to study color as a property of an object. It is advisable that several players participate in the game, so the whole family can play.
- Nowadays, a forgotten game with a spring painted in the colors of the rainbow is becoming popular again. The rainbow toy was invented in 1943 in the USA and was called slinky. In Russia, the very first Slinky rainbow appeared from the writer K.I. Chukovsky. The spring still “walks” on children’s excursions of the writer’s house-museum from the second to the first floor. And it gained the greatest popularity in the 90s; almost every child had such a toy. Its advantage is that each player can come up with his own actions, for example, transfer from one hand to another, make a garland, run down improvised steps, watching how funny the “rainbow walks”, shimmering with all the colors of the spectrum.
It is generally accepted that by the age of three, a child should learn to distinguish primary colors. This skill is an important part sensory development, it gives the child the opportunity to look at the world in a new way. Often, if the baby does not know or confuses colors, parents become concerned about the pace of the child's development. Should you worry if learning colors is not easy for your child? How to teach your baby to distinguish colors? You will find answers to these questions in our article.
Studies have shown that children begin to perceive colors by 2-3 months. The first colors that a child sees are yellow, orange, red, green. At this age, babies may already react differently to their toys. different colors(for example, a red rattle can please a child more than a blue one), enthusiastically look at bright pictures. A baby’s world quickly acquires colors, but if we talk about the ability to consciously find an object of the desired color, then it usually appears in children between one and a half years old. It is at this age that it is optimal to start learning colors in a playful way. You can voice the names of flowers to your child until he is one year old; this will only benefit him. But don’t demand too much from your baby, remember that his brain is actively developing, and as soon as the time comes, you will certainly see results.
To see if your child is ready to learn colors by playing with construction sets, ask your child to show you a piece of the same color as yours. If the baby can find objects of the same color, then he is quite ready to remember the names of colors.
Children receive most of their knowledge about the world from everyday life: communicating with adults and peers, observing nature, playing. Studying flowers is no exception. Sometimes a child does not need to do special exercises to learn to recognize colors. For this, it is enough that he hears the name of the color and associates it with a specific thing. During daily activities, tell your child what color the objects around are. Whether you are drawing, playing with blocks, looking at cars in the yard, reading, swimming, eating, dressing - in each of these situations you can unobtrusively teach your child to distinguish colors.
It is important that studying colors does not turn into torture. You shouldn’t constantly test your child’s knowledge by asking him which color is which. Soon the baby may simply begin to ignore you. “Let's paint the sun yellow!”, “What a delicious green cucumber!”, “Oh, where did the blue cube go? Here he is! - these are examples of how you can unobtrusively help your child remember colors.
Games for learning colors and their shades
In order for your child to develop an interest in learning colors or to consolidate existing knowledge, you can invite your child to play special “color” games.
Sorting by color
Sorting games are aimed at helping the child learn to separate objects into groups by color. Items for sorting can be any available materials: toys, lids, construction parts, cubes, buttons, cereals, pencils, etc. You can organize the game in various ways:
“Hide” an object (arrange objects so that they blend into the background);
You can come up with as many options for sorting by color as you like, it all depends on your imagination. To keep your child interested in the task, connect the plot of the game with his favorite characters and toys (for example, a cat will eat from a yellow bowl, a baby elephant from a red bowl, etc.).
The tasks from the “Pick a Pair” series can help your child learn colors. Ask your child to find a petal for a bug, a pot for a flower, a roof for a house, etc. You can present your child with a variant that is obviously incorrect and ask him to correct the mistakes.
Show your child a picture with the missing parts. Ask him to fill in the gaps (this can be done using plasticine, pompoms, caps, cards, etc.).
At the age of about one year, children begin to be interested in various lotto games. In color lotto, the task is to collect pictures of the same color on a card.
Create for your baby sensory box, in which all objects will be the same color. During the game, the child will be able not only to remember the color he sees, but also to develop fine motor skills, tactile sensitivity, thinking, imagination.
Colorful days
This is one of the most interesting and popular ways to teach a child to distinguish colors. Its essence is that during the day (or several days) you draw the child’s attention to objects of a certain color. For example, on a yellow day you can dress in yellow clothes, play with yellow toys, or draw a yellow chicken. Surrounded by one color, the baby will easily remember it.
You can learn colors with your child using cards. With the help of Doman's "Colors" cards, you can introduce your baby not only to primary colors, but also to various shades. It is important not to overload your child with unnecessary information about the names of 10 shades of green or red. Learn only those shades whose names you can use in play and in life.
Board games for learning colors
An excellent way to study colors and consolidate knowledge about them is to use them on tabletops. Currently, stores offer a wide range of similar games for every taste and budget. Choose a game that your child will like.
Educational cartoons
On the Internet you can find many educational cartoons that will help your child quickly remember colors. Here is one of them:
Educational books
If your baby loves listening to stories and looking at pictures, this method is for you. We all remember the wonderful story of V.G. Suteev “Rooster and Paints”, in S.Ya. Marshak has a whole “Colorful Book”. You can also find many educational books that will become your faithful assistants.
We have listed for you different options games for learning colors. In order for a child to understand the concept of color well, it is worth adhering to a number of principles: do not rush the child, provide a variety of materials for games, discuss what he sees.
Conclusion
You can start studying colors from the very beginning. early age, the main thing is that it is interesting for the child. It is impossible to indicate clear age boundaries for when a child should learn primary colors. This process, like all development, is individual for each baby. At the Constellation Development Center, a Montessori environment has been created for children, aimed at the comprehensive development of the child. In the “Together with Mom” classes, children get acquainted with the concepts of color, shape and size in a playful way, and make thematic creative works. From our teachers you can learn how to interest your child in an activity and how to properly present it to him. educational information. Develop with us!
Helping their child understand the world around him, parents introduce him to the properties of various objects: size, shape and, of course, color. When we learn colors, not everything works out right away, since this property is not isolated or clearly expressed in objects, which is sometimes difficult for a child to learn. At what age should children begin to learn to distinguish colors? How should children be taught to do this correctly? We’ll talk about this today, and also look at useful tips that will help transform the learning process for your baby into a fun, interesting and useful game.
At what age should children be taught?
All babies from early childhood notice everything around them, noting the difference in colors. Although they understand for themselves that the colors of objects can be different, they will not be able to explain this to their parents until they learn to speak. Thus, children will be able to fully distinguish and name this or that color once they reach a specific level of intellectual development.
In general, recognizing colors and their shades is the field of linguistics, so teaching colors with your child can begin from early infancy. If your baby has not begun to speak and distinguish colors at a certain age, this is not a reason to worry, since there is no special table that describes what and at what age should be expected from the baby. Every baby is unique! All parents need to remember this, and also that there is no adult who does not know colors, numbers, letters, names, etc. The main thing is to work with children, pay attention to them, trying to do it as unobtrusively and fun as possible.
Experts recommend starting this learning process as early as possible, because when we teach colors to a child, his brain begins to work more intensely, accumulating information that will be absorbed and applied as he grows up.
At 2 years old, children have every right to remain silent and certainly should not be able to sort objects by size, shape or recognize their colors. With regular lessons with the baby, by the age of 3 he will be able to tell you objects, their color and separate them from others, but they will still make mistakes or get confused, and this is normal. Psychologists say that up to 7 years of age, children may experience some kind of disturbance in color perception. You need to start worrying if a child after 7 years has not learned to correctly distinguish colors.
If parents have color blindness, children can also get this disease, but do not rush to judge, since color blindness comes in varying degrees and complexity.
The main reasons for the inability of children to recognize colors can be of the following nature:
- they started teaching it late, because the child himself will not be able to learn and remember it;
- children have different rates of learning, that is, each person perceives incoming information in their own way;
- character, for example, some children just like it when their parent is nervous.
How easy and fun is it to learn?
Learning the names of colors and subsequently relating them to the colors of different objects is not a difficult task. The main thing is that activities with your child are fun and unobtrusive. We present to your attention a selection useful tips and recommendations on how to teach children to recognize colors correctly using games:
- Learning colors with a 6 month old baby. Most often, kids learn this or that color through associations. Use a pyramid with multi-colored rings and, as you fold each one, say what color it is. This technology can also be used with cubes.
- Teaching children 1 year old. Take plasticine of two colors, for example, red and blue. For the little ones, it is better not to complicate the game with several colors at once. Show them to your baby, naming the color of each. Together with your baby, pinch off small pieces to form candies and feed them to the toys. Tell them that the bear loves red candies, and the dog loves blue ones. Let the child feed his friends, and when he guesses, you will pretend to be contentedly slurping the toy.
- We teach with a 2-year-old child. Since the baby is already older, that is, he understands more and learns faster, you can add another color to the game. Place pictures of three colors on the floor. Give the baby a car with a toy and tell the story that the bunny or doll went to a stop of one color or another. Your task is to interest the baby in the story, having previously identified the selected colored leaves/cardboards.
As already mentioned, all children are unique, so each one needs a different approach when teaching. Some people like to sculpt, some like to draw, while other children play with dolls or taste everything. A child’s individual preferences are indispensable assistants in the learning process, that is, children learn and understand faster if they are interested and having fun.
Introducing a child to the outside world is an important task of attentive and caring parents. You have a lot to tell your baby, teach him a lot - and, among other things, teach him to recognize colors. This is not difficult to do if you practice constantly, organically weaving educational games for learning colors into the traditional list of daily tasks with your baby. But let's talk about everything in order.
Basics of color literacy
Experts have not reached a consensus on the age at which it is advisable to study colors with a preschooler. Some convince that already one-year-old children are ready to correctly process the relevant information, others believe that before the age of 2 it makes no sense to start studying colors and especially shades. But our regular readers know that we are for effective and reasonable training. And our methods allow us to develop intelligence from the cradle, without overloading the child’s brain, without causing rejection of new knowledge, without inhibiting the natural processes of children’s curiosity.
1. Pay attention to the colors of surrounding objects. This can be done even when the baby in the cradle is just learning to focus his infant gaze on surrounding objects. The rattle is yellow, mom’s dress is blue, and now we’ll go for a swim in the green bath. It's not difficult, right?
2. At the age of 2 years, most children already know the primary colors well:
- red;
- blue;
- yellow;
- green.
3. If your baby correctly names the color you are showing, it’s time to consolidate and expand his knowledge, asking him to quickly navigate the color variety and gradually introduce new colors:
- pink;
- blue;
- violet;
- orange, etc.
4. It is very good to work with color during creative activities. Drawing, modeling, applique is a great opportunity to remember already known colors and get acquainted with new ones. And also, by combining mixed materials with each other, you can observe with your own eyes how a third is obtained from two colors. The experiment is simple, but very exciting!
5. Don't focus on learning colors as serious, difficult lessons. Don't examine the baby. Just play with it. Games for learning colors can be invented on the fly. Ideas are literally in the air. But if you can’t come up with them yourself yet, grab a few ready-made recipes that have been tested many times in practice.
Educational games for learning colors
An important stage in learning color is the ability to identify different objects based on this characteristic. To master it you will need various materials:
- sheets of colored paper;
- colored paper clips and clothespins;
- caps from plastic bottles;
- mosaic;
- parts of Lego or its analogues.
In general, you can adapt anything to play with color:
- plastic dishes;
- cocktail straws;
- single-color toys (a great option is sets of small plastic cars);
- napkins;
- rags and sponges for dishes.
You can print cards for educational games from the Internet or buy ready-made games in children's stores. Don’t hesitate, once you start, you will be surprised at how easy it is to come up with your own games.
Well, for now - a few interesting options We, the Eureka Research Institute, will offer it to your parent’s piggy bank.
Game 1: Colored Tea Party
Preparation:
We will need three toys: a doll, a bear and a cat. Of course, toys can be anything - choose from your supplies. Colored dishes are a must. These may be sets of regular plastic dishes. The easiest way is to use children's dishes, which have everything we need: one-color bright saucers, cups and spoons. If your baby doesn’t have dishes yet, this is a great reason to buy them. Contrary to the popular stereotype, dishes are a universal gift that delights both girls and boys with equal success.
Problem statement:
We invited guests to tea. But there is a problem.
- Doll Masha agrees to accept treats only in red dishes;
- Misha the bear - only in blue;
- Cat Kotofey Timofeich - only in yellow.
We must solve the problem.
Solution:
- Light version: you arrange the saucers and cups, and the baby must choose spoons of the corresponding color. You definitely pronounce the colors themselves, but you don’t require this from the child yet. You can play this way even at the age of 8–10 months, if the child is sufficiently diligent and attentive. 5-7 minutes of interest should be enough J
- Intermediate level: you place one item, the child selects the rest independently. At the same time, saying what he is doing and why. You can start playing this way in about a year and a half. True, you shouldn’t expect much zeal until two years later.
- Assignment for advanced: you just name it required colors, and your future excellent student does all the color work on his own.
Game 2: Garages
Preparation:
Using a construction set yourself, or better yet, together with your young architect, make garages of different colors: white, red, blue, green, yellow. Now take out the cars of the corresponding colors. It is desirable that the cars are exactly the same, apart from color differences.
Problem statement:
The cars left their houses in the morning to take people to work and children to kindergartens. But now they are lost and cannot find their place. We must help.
Notes:
In this version, the task is similar to the previous one. You can modify the rules by asking a little researcher to find out where the discrepancy is. Arrange cars in garages, deliberately not observing color harmony. And now the baby must determine what is wrong and correct the situation.
This same set of materials is great for games for attentiveness and memory:
- arrange the cars in the garages;
- let the child look carefully at the play space, saying what it looks like at the current moment;
- ask your child to turn away and swap the cars;
- and now we need to turn around and understand what has changed.
Here are some more options for similar games, but with a different game situation and without detailed explanations.
Game 3: Magic Carpet
Sheets of colored paper are like flying carpets, ready to go into unknown distances. They will take off if the passengers are suitable. The role of passengers can be played by small colored bathing toys, colored rubber balls, construction parts, clothespins, people cut out of colored paper, etc.
Game 4: Everyone Go Home
We need colored boxes-houses and inhabitants of the corresponding color.
Game 5: Don't Spill
Cut out droplets from colored paper. The drops “spilled” onto the carpet. They urgently need to be collected in colored cups.
Game 6: Every bug know its flower
We have colored bugs - small plastic pins (crabs, for example), clothespins or large paper clips. We prepare the flower from colored cardboard. Each bug must land on its “own” petal.
Game 7: Color Shop
Shop is a favorite game for children 2-3 years old, and even at an older age it is of great interest. We can interpret it so that the baby not only practices behavioral patterns in society, not only learns to count, but also masters color literacy.
- Prepare one-color goods - toy fruits, bottles and jars, dishes and anything else from scrap materials. The main thing: the child must clearly identify the object by color;
- Prepare one-color money by cutting them out of colored cardboard. You can make money different shapes, thus simulating their denomination. You can indicate the denomination in numbers if the child is already familiar with counting.
- The rules are simple: we sell green goods only for green money, blue ones for blue money, etc.
Game 8: Colored Days
An excellent game for strengthening the skill of identifying colors in environment. You can declare color days (how lucky that the number of colors in the rainbow coincides with the number of days in the week!) and spend the day looking for matching items, as well as making a conscious effort to use things that are the “right color.”
- On a red day, we eat from a red plate, walk in a red dress, count the red cars on the street.
- The whole blue day we walk around in blue tights, drink compote from a blue mug, and on the street we look for blue fences, swings and benches.
In general, we have set the direction. Imagine!
What color games do you use for your children? We will be glad to get to know your experience if you share it in the comments to the article!
See you again and happy parenting!
A child is born in the mother's womb. The direction of its development is determined in the first years of life. It depends on the parents what the baby knows and can do at a toddler age. Therefore, they are often interested in the question of how to teach children to distinguish colors.
In stores you can find a huge number of expensive educational toys. They are interesting and entertaining, but in order for knowledge to really accumulate, it is necessary to be guided by the features child development at every stage, apply them with love and attention when communicating with the little person.
Knowledge of the colored world up to 1 year
A six-month-old baby begins to see the world in color. He reacts to bright things. This age is characterized by short-term color monochrome. So, over the course of several days or weeks, the child chooses toys and objects of the same color (for example, yellow). The surrounding objects are full of uncertainty for him.
What do you need to know about how to teach children to distinguish colors at this stage?
- The period is more informative than educational. The task of parents is to interest and tell.
- Constant communication is the foundation of early development.
- Environmental awareness must be systematic.
Rules and methods for early learning of “colored” literacy
In this case, as in mastering any business, there are certain rules:
- Verbal method - describing the world around. Repetition is the mother of learning. Talk through what you see as often as possible. While walking with your child in the park, talk about the leaves on the trees, their color and shape. Tear off a leaf and let it tactilely familiarize you with the new object. On your next walk, repeat the same thing. And for the third time, show the weed in a sequence of actions already known to him. It would be useful to focus on the fact that the leaves and grass are green.
- Take your time! There is no need to chatter incessantly: the berry is red, the leaf is green, the sun is yellow. If you have chosen green To train first, pay attention only to things of this color for several weeks. Only then can we move on to new discoveries. Don’t forget to remind yourself of what you already know.
- Use Show cards with a paint tone and name it. Playback duration is several seconds. A gradual increase in the number of images and information about them is the key to more effective memorization.
- Consider the child's character and mood. You can teach only when he is full, satisfied and does not experience other needs.
How to teach a child to distinguish colors: a list of techniques
- Verbal method (pronunciation).
- Creative (drawing, modeling).
- Rhymed (rhymes and songs).
Play and creativity among colors: from 1 year to 2 years
This period is already more informative. The baby got acquainted with the world through his parents' stories and his own discoveries. He knows a lot, but is just starting to speak, understands questions and can answer them by pointing his finger or nodding his head. At this stage, you can already teach your child to distinguish shapes and colors. It is at this age that such actions will bring the most noticeable results.
To do this, you need to know important nuances. Below is information on how to teach children to distinguish colors:
- The first year and a half is the accumulation of understanding of spoken language. Afterwards - the development of your own speech apparatus.
- The child actively learns new things and remembers them as a result of game tasks and comparisons.
- The period can be called the “second fundamental”. Until a child learns all the information by heart, he will be confused and rarely show interest. But this determines how a little person will navigate the world of colors at the age of three.
- There is no need to require regular correct answers. Don't be upset if he points to green when asked about red. The main thing is the thinking process.
- We learn colors without shades: up to 2 years - four basic ones.
Learning through the game is not only educational, but also very interesting.
Potential and limitations in the learning process from 2 to 3 years
The baby is already very well developed. Understanding the world is replaced by a stage of independence: he most often prefers to eat, dress, and undress on his own. At the same time, his brain is prepared to receive new information and successfully remember it. After certain achievements one year old baby It is important to prevent inhibition of development and remember how to teach a 2-year-old child to distinguish colors.
- The color range is expanding. He is able to remember more than four tones. Black and white are added to the main ones. Additional ones include orange and purple (individually).
- You can now play and learn effectively not only with the help of toys, but also with clothes, household items and books.
- Continue to use already known techniques in accordance with age characteristics a little man and common truths on how to teach children to distinguish colors.
Taking into account these age-related changes, parents can teach their child a lot, including preparing them for adequate perception of colors.
- We draw, sculpt, glue. Creativity is the engine of development of a two-year-old child, a teaching method and a means of self-realization. Paper, cardboard, salt dough, plasticine, watercolor are the main assistants in “color” science.
- Let's not stop talking about the colors around us. The little man remembers information better in a relaxed atmosphere. Did you see a crow? Tell us about her, about the colors of her plumage. Went out for a walk on a snowy, frosty day? Play with white snow, reciting information. Later, periodically remind about what you saw and its characteristics. This reinforces associations and stimulates memory.
- The basic games are the same, with a corresponding expansion of the palette.
- Incorporate color awareness into your wardrobe processes. When dressing for a walk, choose things in the same color scheme with your baby. Another time, leave it in a visible place in advance and ask to bring tights or a blouse of a certain shade.
- "Colorful things." Necessary items: pre-colored large pasta, multi-colored beads, mosaic elements, as well as 6-8 containers or boxes of corresponding basic colors. Task: sort the “lost” objects into “houses”.
- "Colorful World" Draw a picture in advance, for example, a green meadow, a green tree, a red house, a yellow sun in the sky, a blue cloud, a flying black raven, white stork, orange ball, purple car (variety should correspond to the level of development). It is necessary to cut out the same images from colored paper. Ask your little one to make an applique. He can simply sort the items, or he can use glue for this.
- "Associations". Prepare colorful images. Place them in balls of the appropriate color. Inflate them and let your child play. Eat and draw your own conclusions.
- "Colored letters." From this age you need to start getting acquainted with letters and numbers. This should not be memorization, but a process of familiarization. In this context, this is ideal option. Sort the letters, name the main ones. Ask to find “yellow letter A”, “red letter A”, “blue letter B”, “orange letter B”. The number of letters to study is 2-3. The emphasis is on flowers.
- Read poems on this topic together, learn songs. Very often, children remember better in poetic or song form.
On the eve of the 3-year-old crisis, the child regularly shows character. It is important to listen to your baby, understand him, and be able to interest him. Psycho-emotional harmony and mutual understanding come first, and only then comes training.
Colorism in the world of childhood from 3 to 4 years old
The baby is already quite old and independent, he has a certain stock of knowledge that needs to continue to be replenished. It is important to be creative and patient in teaching a 3-year-old child to distinguish colors. Due to some features, inevitable but surmountable difficulties arise.
What is important to know about how to teach a child to distinguish colors:
- Crisis of 3 years. It is characterized by the child’s persistence in what he wants and protest against everything that is imposed on him. There comes a period of awareness of one’s own “I” and the formation of independence.
- An important period of psycho-emotional development. The color scheme is perceived differently. Expand existing knowledge to 12 colors (add pink, purple, orange, blue, brown). Depending on the level of mastery of the material, it is possible to become familiar with shades of primary colors (raspberry, burgundy, beige, gray).
Speak, remember, remind. Tell your baby about everything that is around, focusing on the color scheme.
- Play basic games: cubes and balls, lotto, puzzles, sorters, associations - and get creative: “colorful things”, “colorful world”, “colorful” wardrobe analysis. Improvise with known game situations, remaking them in a new way.
- "Rainbow". Children love rainbows. Try to learn a “memory” about her together. Draw a big rainbow. Cut out colorful circles in advance. Let the child arrange them in the appropriate arcs.
- "Colorful cars." Walking the city streets, waiting public transport, the kids watch the road and everything that happens around them. A good activity is to count the cars passing by. It’s even more interesting to look for a car of a given color among them. You can also count the number of red or white cars on a certain section of the highway.
- "Ice cream". Draw or cut out and glue together images of sweet “horns” with ice cream scoops of different colors. Let him choose his favorite. There may be several shades and the task is to count pink (strawberry) or chocolate (brown). You can collect cut-out images of your favorite dessert in your purse or shopping basket.
- “Who is bigger?” While on a walk, choose an interesting object (for example, a car). Play a game to see who can count the most cars of a certain color.
- Learn poems, sing songs. Many children remember better this way.
If the baby doesn’t show interest in the game, don’t force it. Let your imagination work in favor of his positive emotions. Trust is the key to quality training. Guided by existing experience, adults usually already have a good understanding of how to teach a child to distinguish colors. 4 years is the age when it is time to expand and consolidate previously acquired knowledge.
We repeat, we teach, we understand
At this age, the baby should already know 12 basic tones: he easily chooses clothes by color, completes tasks set by his parents that were previously difficult, and he himself “teaches” those around him the color scheme. If difficulties exist, continue to persistently adhere to the techniques described above. This period is the beginning of preparatory preschool. It is important to teach a more assiduous and calm form of perception of knowledge (sitting at the table, using books, albums, creative products). At the same time, it’s time to learn shades: raspberry, burgundy, terracotta, lilac, beige, cream, turquoise, salad and others. Here again, you can’t rush. It is better to study more slowly and longer, but with high quality.
It has been scientifically proven that an intellectually developed person has a better and longer life. Invest love and effort into your child, and he will delight you with his successes day by day.