Learning my Colors Activities

 There are so many simple ways to teach kids their colors and they are naturally drawn to learning about them, so this makes for a simple skill to work on with young toddlers.  I am constantly naming colors in our daily activities for Lucy and I recall doing this with Lena too.  But, after a while, it gets monotonous and I start to wonder if I am tuned out!  So, I found a few very simple activities to get Lucy some practice; Lena loves these too, even though she already knows her colors.  All of these activities have secondary skills, too...a big bonus for Lena.

Color Pipes 
a simple homemade toy that works on colors & fine motor skills

The Simple Steps

1. Collect various color pipe cleaners & coordinating markers, an old oatmeal container (or something similar), a hole punch, and reinforcements. 
2. Punch holes in lid of oatmeal container.
3. Color reinforcement and put on lid.

Link to Color Pipes Activity 

 Our Homemade Color Pipes Toy

I had different shades of green, blue and purple pipe cleaners and I included them all to increase the difficulty for Lena.

Rainbow Painting 

easy prep, great results, worked great as a dual activity for my 18 month old and my three year old.  It was nice to have one activity for both girls with no adaptations.

The Simple Steps

1. Prep - Using markers, color a rainbow on a paper towel 
2. Provide a water dish and paintbrush and let your child paint to her heart's content
3. Enjoy the magic of watching the markers bleed

note:  this seems like it wouldn't be too messy because there are no real paints, BUT the markers do stain hand and I put down our craft tablecloth (thank goodness because the paper towel gets soaked and the marker bleeds on the other side too)  But, this was worth the minimal effort, my girls enjoyed this and "painted" for about 10 minutes

Link to Paper Towel Rainbow Paintings 

You can get a good idea of what the paper towel looked like BEFORE the "painting" commences

Before...I did this one slightly different than the one above...they both turned out well

Lucy and Lena painting rainbows together

A good look at the results and a smile that shows the joy of seeing a rainbow!

Serious Work!

Color Puzzles

I have a puzzle set with  color and texture matching that the girls love, we do this a lot.  I no longer have the box, so I just did a quick search on amazon.  Here it is: Puzzle on Amazon

the girls working together

searching for the right piece

telling mommy the colors




Color Board and Pins
another homemade goodie for color fun and a fine motor skill   

Get Creative - Watercolor Painting


super simple and a great skill to develop

We use kids' cups with lids from restaurants to minimize spillage...Bonus - a fine motor skill to get the paintbrush in the cup!



Color Coded


Lena absolutely loves to color these pages from 1+1+1=1.  They can be  utilized in conjunction with a letter of the week program for tots.  They are simply a repeated picture with a color word (printed in color or highlighted by Mom before beginning) on each picture - a tot-friendly version of a color by number.

Lena works diligently whenever she receives one of these pages...the simple stuff!



Color Sorting Cups
Get out a set of colored cups, I use my egg dying cups and gather some colored items, like erasers, plastic ice cubes, pink pirate coins, etc.  I just keep this set together with our tot tray items for easy set-up & clean-up.  The Dollar Store is great place to pick up cheap manipulatives for hands-on fun.

super simple and a great skill to develop





Egg Carton Colors


super simple, just get out your leftover plastic eggs and color the bottom of an egg carton

Model how to match the eggs to the colors and let the kiddos enjoy...but don't be surprised if they start opening every empty egg to check for treats inside