Teaching colors

ADRIENNE - posted on 02/27/2010

I taught my daughter her colors with M&M's when she was 2 1/2 years old. I don't recommend using M&M's if your child has diabetes.

Chim - posted on 02/26/2010

My almost-3 yr old son seemed not to know his colors for so long that I was seriously considering having him tested for color-blindness, which has occurred in my family. Everything was yellow or blue for the longest time. When he started preschool last fall, I mentioned it to his teachers and they reported back that he had no problem correctly identifying colors. If your daughter already has her letters and numbers down, she's not having any problems learning; she might just be exercising her imagination by calling everything purple or black because those are her favorite colors right now (as with my son's yellow and blue).

Rosemary - posted on 02/25/2010

my suggestion is to give her one color and do that color up to a month until she gets it. put the color all over her rooom. make her wear that color. get some food coloring and make her milk that color and let her use that one colred crayon until she gets it this should work

Alison - posted on 02/25/2010

Purple as my sons first colour to understand to. Don't be to conserned it will happen. I like that song about the cow just pick a colour and sing it in the car or when your doing washing that she can help you with. Pickup a shirt thats blue wave it in the air and sing the song together. Just have fun with it and don't make a big deal about her not knowing. She will pick up on your concern and that wont be good.

Janice - posted on 02/24/2010

I want to thank all of you mom's that have replied to my post. Ya"ll have mentioned many many helpful ways to help me teach my daughter her colors. I just wanted to thank every single person who has taken the time to reply.

Angela - posted on 02/24/2010

My son knew his ABC's and 123's as well but not his colors. He was into cars bigtime. So evertime I went grocery shopping I bought a 99center of a different color. That week I would tell him the color of the car and eventually he would repeat it. Next week I bought another and we played with both colors, and so on and so on. Eventually we couldn't find any new colors. He knows: tan, grey, silver, light . . . dark . . .and more. If she is into dolls maybe a outfit or accessory would work. Just find something she is interested in. Good Luck.

Diane - posted on 02/23/2010

I have Charlotte pick out clothes for the day by color. I ask her what color shirt she wants and then try to get her to say the color. At the store I emphasize colors like Yellow banana, Red apple, etc. It seems to be working.

On a side note it reminds me of what another mother said to me about her child refusing to say the color Yellow correctly- she would pronounce it Lelow. She wouldn't let her put on her favorite yellow coat until she said the word yellow (naming the coat). Finally after much whining the little girl calmed down, looked at her Mommy calmly and said very clearly "If I say the word Yellow will you let me wear my Lelow coat?"

Rebekah - posted on 02/22/2010

Such good ideas here. The hands-on ideas are great (love the food coloring!). Having her mix colors with finger paints or playdough might also be a way to bring it to life. Also lots of kids books out there with color themes. You could also try pairing it with something she's already into...such as if she really likes baby dolls, talking about the colors of the clothes/accessories/etc that go along with it. I agree with the statement that she will get all of that in preschool if she hasn't gotten it before that. (on that note, my son has "pink day" at preschool on thursday...what the heck am I going to dress him in?? we're going with maroon...ha!)
Just a curious thought here...what if a child happens to be color blind? I believe they can discern some degrees of color, but others may be confusing. Not trying to stir up worry...hopefully that is not the case for your daughter, but its just a question. Relax and enjoy the learning process as it comes!

Lyndsay - posted on 02/22/2010

Hello there.. I have a two year old son. He knows his colours and can count to 5 but we're still working on the ABCs.I taught my son with play-dough. I would take out two different containers and hold them up to him and ask him which he wants, "green or blue?", then I'd wait for him to answer before I gave it to him. He has a bit of a speech delay so this was difficult at first, but we worked it out. When it was time to clean up I would take all of the lids and go through the containers one at a time, and I'd be like "which one is the purple lid?" and have him pick it out for me. More recently, my son has taken to colouring with a green marker. He has a whole pack but he loves to colour everything green. So today I printed him a picture of Woody from Toy Story (his current favourite) and we used the movie case as a reference to colour him in properly. Then I would be like, "Woody's pants are blue.. which marker should we use?" and have him pick it. Hope this helps!

Megan - posted on 02/20/2010

Janice, my daughter is almost 4 and we had a similar problem a little over a year ago, she had actually mastered all of the basic colors (red, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple) long before the abc's or numbers came along, but then we visited some relatives and a well-meaning, but misguided uncle was joking around and started saying colors wrong as a joke. Needless to say, after that she couldn't get colors right except for orange and blue! We worked with our daycare to begin a color of the week, and slowly reinforced each color one by one until she get them all. Monday would be the color day (for example, red), then Tuesday and Wednesday would be Red and Blue and then Red and Orange days, Thursday would be for all three colors, and Friday would be red again. The next week, we did the next color, combining colors on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday until all the basic colors were mastered again. Going slowly with a lot of reinforcement helped much better than flash cards or any other method we tried! Good luck, and be patient, you have six very long months to master these colors!

Brittany - posted on 02/20/2010

I bet she knows them. I have a 3 yr old too and for the longest time I tried to teach her the ABC's and she couldve cared less. One day while playing by herself I heard her singing the song.

Maybe purple and black are her favorite colors for now? Does she have any favorite movie characters? Maybe pointing out their color or when you put on her clothes and shoes, casually mention "Ok, now we are putting on your blue jeans and pink shoes", etc.

She sounds like a smart kid, I wouldnt worry about her at pre-school. She sounds right on the ball for her age!!! And what she doesnt know yet, she will pick up at pre-school. So no worries :)

Senada - posted on 02/20/2010

Hello Janice, i also have a 3 year old daughter and I thik she's very bright too even though she cant's say her ABCs and she count's as Pippi (Long Stocking). She's at kindergraten since she's been 16 months and I knwo she's doing just well for her age! If you really are desperate cos your daughter can't recognize cozlors, then i'd say you're overreacting, or?

Desirae - posted on 02/20/2010

I have a song... don't know where it came from... that worked for my daughter...lol (Here it goes : I saw a purple cow walking down the street! She had purple eyes and she had purple feet! She looked pretty much like the other cows do... Except that she was PURPLE... and her milk was too!) I just used the color purple in the song but use a different color each time you sing it. I let her pick the color of the day and even put a couple drops of food coloring in her glass of milk on a few different occasions to encourage her. You wouldn't believe how a she was willing to finally acknowledge the color orange, yellow, blue, red, purple, green, etc... when I gave her that color milk...lol Then it was that color cow for the rest of the day. Good luck... it's worth a shot... worked for me! (Had some good laughs over it too)