I had a session with a parent who was trying to teach her daughter colors. The child’s classroom teacher had given the parent small plastic bears of different colors. The parent would drill the child by placing the bears in front of her and saying, give me yellow. I have also been in classrooms and hear many teachers doing the same. I’m not convinced that drilling a child on colors is good teaching. One of the problems with this technique is it doesn’t account for shades of colors. If the child learns that blue is the color of the small plastic bear, what about light blue, royal blue, etc.
Here are ideas to teach colors…
Pick one color each day. For example, Monday would be yellow day. Get dress up clothes from a thrift store that are yellow and play dress up. Go around the house, classroom, or school and find things that are yellow. Make a yellow book to read. You can use clipart and only put one picture on each page with the phrase, yellow (noun).
You can view an example: I See Yellow
Make a Lotto game, but instead of having one Lotto game for colors, have a different Lotto game for each color. For example, if you are also teaching shapes or letters/numbers, have a yellow Lotto card with yellow shapes or yellow letters/numbers.
Sing Color Songs and Rhymes. Using the tune Mary has a Red Dress, you can plan for the students to wear the target color to school and sing, (Student’s name) has yellow socks, yellow socks, yellow socks. (Student’s name) has yellow socks, and he puts them on his feet.
Here are more ideas to teach colors…
Creative with Kids
Parent’s perspective on her child with autism learning color