The educators in the toddler room at Rising Oaks Early Learning | John Sweeney noticed that some of the children had been mentioning colour names so we were motivated to find out what the children knew. One day when colouring with markers we asked questions about the colours the toddlers were using and determined that several children knew some colours and many knew colour names but could not correctly identify colours so the educators went to work planning activities to make learning colours enjoyable and fun.
First a color book was placed on our tuff tray with an assortment of objects (small window blocks, magnifying glasses, plastic animals, feathers, tongs etc) and the educators named the colors in the book while the children repeated the color names and we searched for objects on the tray that were the same color as the pictures in the book. Over the next three weeks the educators presented more activities including rainbow crafts and experiments. Colour posters were hung on the closet doors for the children to reference, we used mega blocks and counting bears for colour matching and when the children were ready we moved to sorting objects based on their colours. The educators found that lots of repetition helped the children with colour recognition. Language skills were enhanced as the children expanded their vocabulary. They began joining words together and using descriptive words (ex “red feather”). Matching and sorting activities are important as they lay the ground work for more advanced concepts in math and science such as patterns and categorizing. Learning to differentiate colours is also important for visual perception as it improves children’s ability to notice details in their environment.
It was time to see how much the children had learnt so we sent them on a colour scavenger hunt. Blue was the first colour on the chart so the teachers asked “who can find something that is blue?” Ethan and Saylor brought back a blue puzzle piece, Quinn some blue tongs, and Finley showed us his blue water cup. When it was time to find something pink Lily pushed her body up onto the chart showing us that she was wearing a pink shirt. Soon the children began taking ownership of the game and they chose which colours they wanted to look for next. Rosie chose purple and orange. Ilija wanted to be part of the group and began pointing to colours on the chart as if he were also participating and Kai followed along with his peers bringing back items even though they were not the colour we were searching for. As we were searching for black items Lilia found a blank strainer and took it to the black poster on the closet door. There was lots of excitement and enthusiasm as the game got the children thinking and up and moving around the room. As educators we were so proud as the children demonstrated how much they have learnt.
The next day Saylor picked up the chart and encouraged her peers to go on another search through the classroom for more colours so we will leave the scavenger hunt out for the children to use as long as they wish.
