Wednesday 13 July 2016

Learning colours with toddler- yellow

Little L is like a little sponge and I have decided to take advantage of it and introduce small sessions where we will be discussing and learning about colours.

At first I wanted to learn about each individual colour for a week as thought that 2 or 3 days may not be enough but opted for 5 days in the end. 



Our 1st session was flower/plant themed. I have picked different yellow flowers from our garden and placed few in the vase and on L's table so that she can see, touch and do whatever she wants with them.



Session number 2 was a sensory orientated play with yellow rice. The day before I have prepared an empty soup pot and yellow food colouring (you can buy it from Home Bargains for less than 50p). Mixed them both together and left to dry on a kitchen towel overnight. 
On the actual day I have prepared a tin tray with some play kitchen utensils and let L play with it whilst explaining to her that she plays with yellow rice.

On day number 3 we had a little session with shaving foam. It was L's first time playing with it and I was very interested to see what she would do. I have sprayed a little bit of foam into the tin tray and added come yellow food colouring and let L play until she decided to taste it.
Not the safest of options but a very interesting one, as I watched L play with the yellow foam I have seen L working on her pincer grasp (trying to pick the foam up as if it was something hard), trying to stretch the foam, clap her hands with it and generally investigation and learning about a different texture which at first seemed hard for her.

Day 4, this time I wanted us to do something crafty and came with an idea of making our own yellow sun. 



The night before I have prepared a small disposable plate, A4 sheet of paper and some finger and acrylic paint in yellow, mixed them all up as I didn't have enough of one type and painted the plate and sheet of paper in yellow, left it to dry overnight. Once the A4 paper was dry I cut it into small pieces to use for the sun rays.

On the day I have showed L the plate and my little sun rays, talked to her that it is yellow and we are going to make our own sun by using glue and attaching yellow paper strips onto the yellow plate.

As the sun creation took just few minutes I thought that it would be lovely to add some life into it and to draw a face- eyes, mouth, nose and blush. We have used crayons but you can use a pen or pencils, what suits you best. 

On day 5 I have used coloured dough, which is very easy to do. To make do I have used flour, water and yellow food colouring, mixed them together. 
I think it was one of the successful days, L played with it for ages and ages and enjoyed throwing it, rolling it in hands and reaping apart.

Upon reflection, we have had a little progress with yellow colour, L repeats the word and knows what it means. As I have never said the word "colour", just pointing at colours, it takes time for L to understand when I ask her"What's the colour of?", but I guess it is just another word to learn and understand.

If this is something you would like to try with your little one, you can of course mix and match the sessions and introduce educational sheets for each individual colour or specific colours you think that your little one need to know, prepare a yellow themed  treasure box with different yellow coloured items I'm sure you can all find something in the house, I certainly found lots.

The next colour themed session would be either green or red orientated as these are the colours L seems to mix up sometimes. I might use rice and dough again as it was a big hit and will try treasure box and colour themed educational sheets.

2 comments:

  1. Teaching my nephew to learn about colours
    Great idea to make your own play doh
    You plates are a great idea too

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a lovely bunch of activities! I regularly do learning sessions with my 18 month old and 4 year old, but never thought to spend the week on one particular colour - might have to do that! :)

    ReplyDelete