5 Engaging Ways to Bring Color into Your Toddler’s Vocabulary

As your toddler strives to describe items in their world, they will use infuse adjectives into their daily speech. Their first adjectives will consist of words that describe color and size. Start off with this short video from Kids Academy and supplement with some of the activities below.

The Color Words animation is a great way for your youngster to practice color words and common vocabulary as the elephant spends his day choosing the colors of common items, such as ball, hat, and apple.

Color Collage

Your child can practice sorting, cutting, and pasting skills with this tactile activity. Divide a chart paper or a poster board into eight categories. Name each section a color, example: Things that are red. Provide magazines, newspapers, and advertisements to help your child find items of each color. Assist in cutting and gluing the pictures into the appropriate sections.

Fingerprint Art

No lesson about color would be complete without breaking out the paint. It’s time to get messy with some fingerprint art. The possibilities are endless, just provide the paint and the water and let your toddler’s imagination take center stage.

Color by Number

Inspired by the classic pastime Paint by Numbers, you can use resources from Kids Academy's bank of coloring sheets to have your child practice color words. These activities will allow your toddler to practice their colors to complete the scenes. Simply choose a printable coloring page and write numbers in sections of the page. Assign a color to each section for your toddler to complete the page.

Color Hunt

Label laundry baskets or bins with the primary colors. set a timer for five minutes and have your toddler search through the house for items that can be placed into each color bin.

Colorful Cereal Art

Fine tune those motor skills with colorful cereal art. Purchase your child’s favorite colorful cereal and sort the bits of cereal by color. Use the cereal to create artwork, like a rainbow glued to construction paper or a bracelet.

Kids Academy Resources

These activities from Kids Academy will allow your youngster to practice tracing the dotted line to prepare for handwriting. Use these worksheets below as another opportunity to practice color words.

By: Monica Edwards

English Language Arts Teacher, Curriculum Writer