Color Games

Recent rain and sunshine means we are starting to see more and more colors around the city. Color identification is one of the main concepts being mastered by toddlers and preschoolers and springtime is a great excuse to reinforce these concepts. Here are some fun and familiar creative play activities that will focus your child's mind and eyes on the emerging colors in the world around them:

• Bring your baby to the flower stand and point out different colors and shapes of the different flowers. Let them touch and smell the flowers as much as is possible and polite.
• "I spy, with my little eye, something that is YELLOW..." Take turns with your preschooler spotting colors together as you walk down the street. Start with big and bold colors and move on to more subtle or small colors.
• Introduce your toddler to new names for familiar colors by sprinkling fuschia, chartreuse, aquamarine, and violet into your everyday vocabulary.
• "Color Collage" Choose one color that is featured prominently in a book you are reading with your toddler (i.e. "The Little Mouse, the Big Hungry Bear, and the Red Ripe Strawberry") and make a color collage by finding all red beads, feathers, paper, and stickers from your art supply drawer shelf and putting them together into an all-red collage.
• "Moving with colors" Encourage preschoolers to think about the energy and emotions behind different colors. What does blue "feel" like? What about grey? Can you move like the color yellow? Is it fast or slow? This will help your child start to think about how artists choose colors to communicate an idea or feeling.
  

Have fun playing with colors this week!