Interactive Toddler Games For Learning Colors

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Interactive Toddler Games For Learning Colors

Interactive games are exciting for toddlers learning colors.

Childhood games engage children in activities that also help them learn. Toddlers enjoy learning while singing songs or creating artwork. Involving music, craft and food while teaching colors, brings toddlers lots of amusement as they learn.

Food Painting

Painting is one of the easiest interactive ways to teach toddlers about colors. Because toddlers are moving through a sensory phase of learning, selecting safe and edible materials ensures a positive learning experience. Some choices include softly cooked and cooled oatmeal or mashed potatoes. Cold foods that work for toddler painting can be cottage cheese or sour cream.

Before beginning, ensure that the toddler has no allergies to any of the ingredients or food colorings.

The painting works best on a wide smooth surface, such as the toddler's work or eating table. Help the toddler into a painting smock or T-shirt to protect clothing. After wiping the table clean, place the edible material in front of the toddler. Then, offer the toddler ways to color the material. Food coloring helps the toddler learn that adding drops makes deeper colors. Another coloring ingredient can be packaged custards or jellos. The toddlers can make a game of adding colors, spreading the material on the table and talking about what they are doing.

Sorting

Toddlers love to sort items. When items are sorted by color, the toddler learns a lot about the various shades and values to a color. Many items in a toddler's world lend themselves to sorting games: Blocks, crayons, clothing, shoes, books, toys and food can all be sorted by color.

One of the easiest sorting games is placing objects in baskets. Begin with the primary colors of red, blue and yellow. Label three baskets with the name of the color written in that color. Select objects in the primary colors, with enough for a child to have ample opportunity to practice. Have some sample objects, such as a blue block, a red book and a yellow T-shirt. Show the toddlers that the blue block goes into the basket labeled "blue," the red book goes into the basket labeled "red" and the yellow T-shirt goes into the basket labeled "yellow." Toddlers quickly understand the game, and the main challenge then becomes having enough objects to keep up with the toddlers' sorting.

Colors by Music

Toddlers love listening to music and singing songs. Musical activities and games provide excellent opportunities for interactive color lessons. The music reinforces the language learning, making it easy for the toddler to remember the colors.

One activity involves a pair of white gloves. Before working with the toddler, paint the fingers of the gloves in a mirror image of colors, using red, yellow, green, blue and orange; now there are two of each color, one on each hand. Hold up one hand and ask the toddler where red is, then hold up the other hand, and ask where red is. Repeat with each color. The toddler teacher can use well-known tunes, such as "The Farmer in the Dell" to review the colors, with the toddler helping to make lyrics. One possibility is "The fingers on the hand, the fingers on the hand, high ho the derry-o, the fingers on the hand. This finger's green, this finger's green, high ho the derry-o, this finger's green."

19th century paint colors

Tuesday, March 19, 2013