Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Purple, Blue, White

(Anybody who's child watches Bubble Guppies just sang that title to a little tune in their head.... it's okay, you can admit it).

When I first started researching age-appropriate activities for Ryker I came across a lot that pertained to learning colors. I figured learning your colors is a pretty basic thing so why not start with that? The first thing I did was check out the Target dollar spot - bingo! They had some packs of primary color pom-poms, foam hands, and pipe cleaners that I quickly snatched up. I wasn't entirely sure what I would be doing with these products but for $1 who cares?? I also stumbled upon this great Pantone book. I love it because it shows different shades of all the common colors. We also have this box set that has a book specifically about colors. Here are some pictures of our color follies:

We used the muffin tin to "sort" the pom-poms by color. I would drop them in the correct hole and say the color out loud. Ryker was only 12 months at this point so he obviously couldn't sort them on his own, but he liked taking them in and out of the muffin tin and throwing them across the room. He did try to put the pom-poms in his mouth a couple times but after I sternly told him "no" he didn't try anymore (this was not the same for the dog).

When I first broke out the foam hands and pipe cleaners I just let him play with and explore them on his own while I pointed out the colors and occasionally grouped them together. He loved how floppy the hands were and just kept shaking them up and down. Eventually I decided to buy these primary colored bins from Amazon so as he got older we could use them for more organized sorting. (Right now they are storing some his toys but there are also smaller bins if you want to try those). Finally, I ended up buying these shape/color bean bags because they were on sale, but please remember that you can use toys your child already has to sort by color!

I hope this post sparked some ideas for your own color-related early learning! Let me conclude by saying that pretty much every time I brought out these activities, they only lasted about 5 minutes before he wanted to move on to something else.... that's okay! The point is to expose your tot to different play/learning materials and let them decide on their own what to do with them and for how long.... That is what makes learning fun! Leave a link to your tot color activities in the comments below! Thanks!