Teach My Child About Colors

Teaching about color is fun! Children seem to be drawn to colors and pick up their names quite easily through everyday interactions with them. In these cases, the hands-on activities are fun reinforcement! In other cases, a special activity featuring one color a week will do the trick and the child will be off and running with flying colors 😉 With some special needs learners, a lot of activities may be needed.

If you are unsure of homeschooling your special needs learner you might find Choosing to Homeschool a Child With Special Needs helpful.

Here you will find many activities to choose from that will give any child a solid handle on the color names!

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10 Ways to Teach My Child About Colors

1. Mention/Name them consistently in everyday life. For an example: saying, “just pick the red ones,” while picking tomatoes, all the while pointing out the red tomatoes. If they start to reach for a green tomato, just say “we’ll leave the green ones until they’re ready. We’ll pick them when they turn red!” We don’t have to be teach-y here, just casually put the names of colors into the conversation.
   • Point out the color of the clothes your child is wearing that day
   • Do you want red, or blue?
   • you always pick the pink, do you like pink?
   • I like the green marker, too!
2. Make Playdough together, giving several color options.
   • Talk about how pretty the blue is coming out.
   • Observe aloud how the pink turns to red as you add more coloring.
   • As you add a little blue to the red observe the purple hue
3. Color with your child.
   • Ask him if he wants a blue crayon.
   • Tell her you like the pink sun!
   • Talk about how you are going to add different shades of green to your tree
4. Make Color Books. These can be pages in a 3 pronged folder, homemade books, or store-bought blank books.
   • One color per book, we’ll use blue for an example.
   • Everything in the book is a specific color, any shade of that color: Blue for example
   • Some ideas might be:
     • an all blue coloring page, just give your child a few blue markers, some blue crayons, a blue colored pencil or two, blue pastels, etc. And let them color away!
     • Glue small, flat blue objects to a page: a ribbon, a button, a material scrap, a piece of a blue straw, etc
     • Include textures like a washcloth piece, a scrap of silk, or corduroy, something fuzzy. . . blue
     • Stickers! Blue ones.
     • Glitter, blue
     • Do a treasure hunt for blue objects throughout your house, and add some small finds
5. Include several colors of food to each meal and point them out
6. Do a color scavenger hunt in your home, at the park, in the store, anywhere!
7. Play “I spy” colors
8. Do individual color collage pages. I like to use the big drawing paper for this! This is a project that can be stretched out over several days. My children have always been particularly proud of these! You can do one for each color.
   • Start by giving the child several types of coloring options. All in the chosen color. Several shades of that color crayon, markers, pastels, colored pencil, etc. Let them scribble, draw, anything they like, with the idea being to fill as much of the page as possible.
   • On a separate, smaller size paper, or several papers, let them watercolor (keeping to the same color
   • Glue these onto the first page. A fun option is to cut them into different shapes first!
   • Print pictures of objects that are your featured color. Or, old style, cut pictures out of magazines. Let your child glue these onto the big page.
   • Give the child small scraps of colored scrapbooking paper to glue onto the collage.
   • Take a picture of your child wearing clothes in the hue of the featured color. Glue this to the center of the page.
   • Next, you can add ribbon scraps, buttons, even glitter!
9. Make a color binder with a page for each color. Use pictures of familiar objects on colored paper.
10. Make color cards!
    • Using blank index cards, let your child draw on them, using one color each.
    • On the opposite side, draw a large dot in that color. Alternately, you could glue a large colored dot, cut out of paper, of that color
    • Laminate. If you don’t have access to a laminator, use clear contact paper!
    • Use a hole punch to make a hole in one corner
    • Connect all the cards using a ring fastener that can be found anywhere office supplies are found.

There you have it! Ten ways to teach your child about color. Simple, fun, inexpensive activities that will have any child able to identify colors in no time!

Joy is a veteran homeschool mom of 20 years. She has 6 children, 3 who have already flown the coop, living their lives as healthy, happy, productive members of society, standing strong in their faith in their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. She is still in the trenches, having 3 children still at home. Two of these kiddoes have Down syndrome, fanning into flame her passion for resources for special needs learning at home.