Learning Colours – RED

This week my little Miss 22months and I have embarked on a series of activities to help her learn her colours.  All activities are play – based focused and some will be craft orientated.  At the end of each week I will share with you what we have been up too and hope to inspire you to come along and join in the journey of colours!

I can sense and hear a number of questions and I understand why they are asked……. Isn’t she too young?  My child isn’t talking properly yet?

My answer is this:  everything we do with our children counts and makes a difference whether we can see it now or possibly in a years’ time, everything counts!  The best part of it is that they get to play……WITH YOU and have fun, learning colours is second to that!

RED DISCOVERY BOX

Go on a ‘red treasure hunt’ around the house with a box and fill it with as many red things as you can find.  You can involve your child or make the discovery box for your child to explore.  In our treasure box we had a red scarf, book, pretend food, blocks, bath toys, red basket, thread beads, cups, spoons and red bean bags.

Kids love to explore and have a natural curiosity to learn and a discovery box is great for exploring and learning.  A box filled with so many ‘red’ treasures to pull out to touch and feel, smell, listen to, look at and explore.  It is so much fun to see what they come up with or what they choose to explore first.

RED BATH FUN

Bringing the fun of learning the colour red into the bath!!  This involves adding a few drops of red food colouring to the bath water and a range of red objects such as red cups, bowls, plastic spoons, plastic food, etc.  Some of the items were taken from the discovery box.

One of my girls has skin sensitivities and so we do not add bubbles to bath but this would make it even more fun if you are able.  I was a little unsure about adding food colouring to the water but we did not need a lot, about a quarter of a teaspoon.  From our experience of adding colouring to the water, it did not mark the bath or the kid’s skin as the colouring was incredibly diluted.

RED PLAY DOUGH WITH RED PROPS

We set up our play table with red play dough, red pop sticks, cookie cutters, match sticks, feathers, plastic spoons and forks and any other red item that you may have around the house.  The play dough was left out on the table for the whole week and was only packed away into a basket for other activities and then set out again.

Click here to view the Basic Recipe: How to Make Play Dough?

CRAFTY RED LADY BUG

Our red craft activity was making a Red Lady Bug for Miss 22 months using scrunched up red crepe paper and pipe cleaners.  I had all the materials laid out and ready for her to use, with my guidance.  Basically the activity involved her gluing and sticking on the dots and scrunched up crepe paper.  We applied the glue first with the paint brush, then added the black dots and then placed on the scrunched up red crepe paper.  We sang a song “put some red over here and some red over there” (full lyrics below) as she placed the scrunched up red balls onto the lady bug.  Miss 22 months assisted me when sticking on the pipe cleaners for legs and antennae.

Download and print your very own lady bug here: Printable Lady Bug Template

Tip:  I glued the printed lady bug onto a cardboard cereal box to make it stronger and last longer.

OTHER RED ACTIVITY IDEAS

1. Wear red for a day:  My daughter has red shoes, so I placed an emphasis on the red shoes.
2. Make a red lunch:  Jam sandwiches with cut up strawberries and watermelon.
3. Red blocks: Empty a box of coloured blocks all over the floor and together separate all the red ones.  When a different colour it picked up, say “this is a blue block, let’s find more red ones.”  Hold up a red one to show and encourage.
4. Make cupcakes:  Cook cupcakes together and decorate them with red smarties only.  The fun part is separating the red ones to the other colours!
5. Read books:  Choose books that have red pictures in them and point them out but also mentioning the other colours too.

Tips for Learning 

Use repetitive language: Say the word red out loud during play as much as possible and encourage your child to use and say it.

For example:

What is this colour?  There may be a or no response, then say……

This is a red shark, red…. (point to other red things)

Strawberries are red too….. (Something that your child is familiar with, my daughter loves strawberries.)

Sing Songs about the colour red

You can basically take any song and replace some words with other words including red.  Why not make up your own song or chant with the word red?  This is so good for oral language development!

Put some red over here and some red over there.

And some red on your ear and some red in your hair.

There are lots of red things everywhere, everywhere!

It’s a red, red kind of day!

More Colour Activities <CLICK HERE>