How to teach children to distinguish colors: effective methods, interesting ideas and recommendations. How to teach a child to distinguish colors? Games and tips Learning the color red 1 2 years


Every loving parent strives to invest in him, from the very first days of his baby’s life, all the best and most valuable things he has. And if there are usually no problems with choosing good and high-quality things for a child, then the issues of pedagogy and upbringing are important and pressing for many parents. This is especially true for those mothers and fathers who became such for the first time. The questions that interest them can be very different, but they all boil down to one thing: what and how to do in order to convey to the child the knowledge he needs and teach him this or that skill. Let's look at some principles that have been successfully used by other parents for decades, and try to figure out how to teach a child to distinguish colors.

The optimal age for teaching a child to distinguish colors is from 2 to 5 years.

Principles of formation of color perception functions in a child

Before you start studying practical advice and methods, parents need to become familiar with some of the features of the development of visual functions in children. This will help you use the acquired knowledge in the right way.

So, a child’s ability to focus on any object appears at the age of 2-3 months. Usually the first thing a baby learns to distinguish is the mother's breast. This is due to the fact that at this age the color perception of the child’s eye is adjusted in such a way that the child can clearly see the mother’s nipple. The colors that he can distinguish between 2 and 6 months are in the wavelength range of a wide spectrum: red, pink, brown. The ability to distinguish short wavelength colors, blue and green, appears closer to the seventh month of life, and full color perception is formed in a child by the age of eight.

Now that we know the basic principles of forming children's perception of the color palette, we can begin to study recommendations and advice from more experienced parents.


  • Teach from an early age. Don't underestimate children's learning abilities. Even if a child cannot speak yet, this does not mean that he is not able to understand or remember something. If you regularly communicate with your baby and tell him what color, for example, his favorite rattle is, this will definitely stick in his head. And in the future, when he can consciously construct different words, it will be easier for you to explain the difference between one color or another;
  • Link new knowledge to emotions. Human memory is designed in such a way that we best remember pictures, vivid images and emotions. It’s not for nothing that they say: a person will remember not what you did for him, but what you made him feel. Use this technique in teaching children. For example, start learning colors with your favorite fruit;
  • Practical use. New knowledge should be used immediately by the child. If you have learned something new with your baby, try to make sure that he begins to apply it in life. You have learned the color red, so when you are going to go out, ask him to bring you his red jacket. The more often you encourage your child to apply what they have recently learned, the better they will remember it all;
  • Encourage your child to share what he has learned with others. After you've learned a new number or color, have your child call grandparent and tell him about it. This principle works very effectively in conjunction with practical application. For example, dad came home from work in the evening and went to wash his hands before eating - let the baby give him a yellow towel;
  • Speak in different phrases. Always say color in different contexts so that the child does not perceive it as one word: this is a red ball, the ball is red, this is a ball, it is red, etc.;
  • Avoid diminutive words(blue, red);
  • Take some time with shades– it’s better to leave all light green, pink and blue shades for later;
  • Don't start learning a new color until your child has mastered the previous one!(we start with red, and then get acquainted with yellow, green, blue).

Although this article is about how to teach your child to distinguish colors, the principles outlined above apply to more than just that. Using them, you can learn both letters and numbers. Below we will look at several effective techniques that will help parents teach their children about the color palette.

Five techniques

There are a huge number of different ways, using which you can teach a child at the age of three to distinguish between six colors (red, blue, yellow, green, white and black), and more. But if you delve into their essence, then almost all of them come down to five simple pedagogical techniques. We will talk about them below.

  1. Informal learning. The essence of this method is to teach the child in the process of everyday communication. For example, on the way to a park or kindergarten, a child is asked to count together the green cars that will pass by him. Naturally, before this, the parent must show the baby what the color green looks like. The effectiveness of this method lies in the fact that the child is given complete freedom of action, no one limits him in anything. He can do whatever he wants along the way, as long as he doesn’t forget to count the green cars. By the way, the number of cars counted doesn’t matter at all either: ten passed, but only two were counted - well done!
  2. Creativity. At this stage, you will need to make sure that the child has paints, pencils, markers or plasticine. Ask your little one to choose the color he likes best and tell him what color it is. Let it be blue. Invite your child to draw something together, for example, a blue circle. Say that this is a blue balloon that does not have a string, and if you do not finish drawing it, the balloon will fly into the sky. Ask the little one what color the lace should be if the ball is blue. The same can be done with plasticine. We also read: What does a child's drawing say?
  3. Using toys. Specialized stores for children sell a huge number of educational toys that help them remember numbers, letters and colors. The most productive of them for memorizing colors are pyramids of rings, puzzles and construction sets.
  4. Interactive books. Their effectiveness lies in large colorful pictures that attract the child’s attention. As a rule, such manuals offer all kinds of tasks, completing which the child simultaneously participates in exciting game, develops fine motor skills of fingers and teaches color palette. For example, in the book by Anna Goncharova, the baby is asked to learn colors in poetic form, and in the manual by Olesya Zhukova, the toddler can draw directly in the book with his fingers.
  5. Story games. Come up with simple games in which the child can use his senses. For example, take two multi-colored balls and make houses of the same colors for them. Houses can be painted boxes or sand buckets. Place the balls in the corresponding houses. After everything, take them out of there and tell the baby that they went for a walk. Suddenly a wolf appears from somewhere and wants to eat the balls. They urgently need to be rescued! Tell your child that each ball must be quickly returned to its house, otherwise the wolf will eat them. The essence of such a game is to evoke emotions, empathy and sympathy in the baby. This will activate additional parts of the brain and help you remember the right colors even better.

Using these techniques in their various variations will help achieve good results V as soon as possible, but remember, every child is individual. All babies develop differently, and in no case can you compare them with each other. If it seems to you that your baby is not learning as quickly as other children, there is no need to panic or be upset.

Learning by playing

It is known that children learn faster through play. Studying flowers is no exception. Therefore, if you want to teach your child to distinguish colors, we recommend using games.

  • Find the color. At the initial stage of study, while the child cannot yet name colors, you can ask him to find objects of a certain color according to the pattern you showed. It is important to first choose items of the same shade. To do this, you can use cubes, mosaic parts or construction sets;
  • Arrange by color. To do this, you can use buttons or bright beads. Invite your child to put, for example, large blue buttons in one box, and small blue ones in another. If there are buttons of different shades of the same color, then you can ask the baby to put them in a row from the lightest to the darkest;
  • Confusion. For the game we need multi-colored pens. Adults remove the caps from them and offer to help the child choose the right caps for certain pens. During the game, you can deliberately choose the wrong cap - the baby will definitely correct you;
  • Cap. Make caps from multi-colored cardboard and place them in front of the child. An adult recites a poem: “I’m going, I’m going to visit on a horse in a yellow hat!” - in this case, the child must choose a cap of the desired color and put it on his head;
  • Find the extra one. Among the four balls, 3 should be one color and 1 another. The child needs to find a ball that is different in color from the others;
  • Funny beads. Make circles of different colors from colored paper or cardboard. Prepare a bead template and invite your child to arrange his beads according to the pattern you suggested;
  • Arrange the balls correctly. An adult pours colorful balls onto the floor and places several boxes. A ball of a certain color is placed in each box. The child needs to collect the balls and put them in the appropriate boxes.

To ensure successful learning, always comment on your actions and end the game as soon as the child shows the first signs of fatigue or loss of interest. And don’t forget to praise your child for every achievement, and then teaching your child to distinguish colors will not be difficult for you.

Toys to help your child learn to distinguish colors

"Hooray. Rainbow". This game is for children 2-3 years old. The child needs to correctly, selecting them by color, arrange the pictures according to the rainbow.

The game “Halves of a Flower” is also intended for children 2-3 years old. It develops a holistic perception of color. The child needs to match the halves of the flowers by color. You can download the pictures on a color printer and cut them.


Or, for example, the game for kids “Colors”. It is a didactic mosaic for kids. Consists of eight large cardboard cards, cut into 2 elements using PUZZLE technology. Some halves of the cards depict objects familiar to the kids, and the other halves show pencils that match them in color.
And also a good educational game “Magic Color” Included: a playing field (33 x 48 cm in a spread) - a castle on the river bank, a small book with text and tasks “Journey to Gnome or the Colored Kingdom” and a set of reusable stickers - gnomes, a mole , all the colors of the rainbow and more. . All the colors of the rainbow on your magic
palette Children go to a fairyland where colorful gnomes live. While playing with magic Velcro, they will learn what the colors of the rainbow are, primary colors, cold and warm, contrasting and close. Good wizards will tell you how to create new color combinations, which will help your child when he picks up paints and brushes.

If something goes wrong

Some parents and teachers, seeing that the child stubbornly continues to confuse colors, may draw erroneous conclusions regarding the child’s mental abilities. If you are faced with a similar situation, do not rush. Some children may have a banal delay in early development, but over time everything will work out and the child will catch up with his peers.

Another reason why children may not distinguish colors is a violation of photosensitivity. This is when a child’s perception of certain colors and shades is impaired. However, it often happens that such disorders are not diagnosed at all, since the baby has learned to distinguish colors by brightness and contrast.

It also happens that a child even at four years old not only confuses colors, but almost does not distinguish between them. This may be due to a variety of reasons, among which three main ones are worth highlighting:

  1. The study of colors began too late; the baby simply has not yet fully mastered these names and cannot easily apply the knowledge received from his parents in practice.
  2. The peculiar pace of assimilation of information, which may be associated with the child’s temperament, is quite possible that he has already remembered everything perfectly, just so far he does not risk making certain statements about the colors of objects.
  3. Problems with vision, and in this case it is best to go to the doctor once again and hear his recommendations, rather than think and guess what will happen next.

In general, you should approach studying colors with your child carefully and responsibly, but at the same time calmly. A playful attitude is very important; with it, a child will learn this rather complex topic much easier and more interesting.

Everyone understands that by the age of three a child should be able to distinguish colors and be able to name them. Of course, a child cannot immediately remember all the variety of colors, but he must distinguish and know basic colors, such as red, blue, yellow, green, white and black.

We also read: How to teach a child to hold a pen and pencil correctly - 8 ways

The video provides recommendations for teaching children with mental retardation to distinguish colors. You can work with your child at home quite successfully and get amazing results. Systematic creative activities have a beneficial effect on the development of a child’s attention, imagination, memory, fine motor skills, thinking, speech, help to develop faster, catching up with, and sometimes even ahead of, peers with whom such classes were not conducted.


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For a long time now I have been promising to write an article about how to teach a child to distinguish colors and about how we did it with Taisiya. Judging by the number of questions I receive, this topic interests many mothers. This is not surprising, because knowledge of colors is an integral part of a baby’s sensory development. Getting to know color significantly expands a child’s understanding of the world and allows him to classify all surrounding objects in another way - by color. In addition, the ability to distinguish colors opens up a new layer of interesting educational games for the child.

When does a child begin to distinguish colors?

Experts say that for a child, the world takes on colors within the first 3-4 months of life. Indeed, a child can pay attention to contrasting patterns and react differently to rattles of different colors, but, of course, it is too early to talk about conscious separation of colors at this age. The ability to find a certain color among others, and even more so to name colors, appears in the baby much later. no earlier than 1-1.5 years . Well, the exact timing depends solely on whether you pay attention to studying colors with your child.

You can name colors while playing with your baby for up to a year, and there will be no harm from it. Well, after a year you can introduce special “color” games, about which we'll talk In this article. These games are also suitable for 2-3 year old children who are still confused about the names of colors.

Child's readiness to remember color names you can check it very easily. When playing with cubes (construction sets, balls in a dry pool...), take, for example, a red cube and ask your child to find exactly same, same. If the child understood you and coped with the task, we can say that he distinguishes colors and is ready to learn their names.

Learning colors during everyday games and walks

Generally speaking, I am convinced that in order to teach a child to distinguish primary colors, there is no great need for special classes; it is enough just to regularly name the colors during your regular games. When you draw, be sure to pronounce the colors of the pencils; when building with cubes, construction sets or mosaics, don’t forget to remember the shades of the details. The same applies to dressing, walking, sculpting, applique and your other favorite activities - in conversation, constantly name the colors of the objects and playing materials around you.

Just remember that “learning colors” does not mean that you have to constantly examine the child “Tell me what color it is”, “Show me where red is”, etc. A child, like any other person, does not like being tested on his knowledge, so at first just name the colors and answer your own questions: “Where is the yellow cube? Here he is!" “Let’s draw the grass with a green pencil.”

How to teach a child to distinguish colors? Games

1. Sorting by color

In “sorting” games, the child is required to divide objects into groups, focusing on their color, and you are also required to constantly say the names of colors , so that they are deposited in the baby’s head. What can you sort? Here are some game options:

    You can make a color sorter from any unnecessary box; just cover the box with colored paper and make a few slits. You can push mosaic pieces, multi-colored paper clips, buttons, etc. into the slots. Our sorter is made from a tea box and mosaic pieces. Sometimes there are ready-made options.

    We sort the beads into bowls. Imagine with your child that the beads are candies that you need to treat your toy friends with. At the same time, the bear loves only green candies, and the lion cub only loves red ones, so you have to try very hard not to offend anyone

  • We lay out toys and other small household items on the floor and invite the child to sort them into boxes of the appropriate color. Instead of boxes, you can prepare a large sheet of paper with different colored sections. Our game was much more dynamic when we distributed colored sections between Taisiya and her favorite toy. For example, Tasya took away all the red objects, and the doll Masha took away all the yellow ones.
  • We find a mother hen for each testicle, focusing on color.

Place all the eggs in a cut-off plastic cup attached to the chicken.

You can come up with a huge number of color sorting options; it’s impossible to list them all here. You can place colorful butterflies in flowers, fruits and vegetables in baskets, and settle colorful animals in houses... By the way, in A collection of games from readers There are also good color sorting options.

2. Games from the “Match a Pair” series

Games from the “Match a Pair” category are also well suited for learning colors. You can select lids for houses, caps for gnomes or clowns, housing for colorful people, etc.

You can try this version of the game: lay out the incorrect version in front of your child in advance and ask him to correct the mistakes.

3. Color lotto

Games based on the lotto principle become interesting to children at about a little over a year old. Of course, for now the kids don’t play by adult rules, but simply match cards to the playing field with pictures.

In color lotto, the pictures on each playing field have only one color. (An example of a colored lotto can be DOWNLOAD HERE). Therefore, to collect such a lotto, the child needs to select cards of a given color from the rest and place them correctly on the field.

In a more complicated version, you can use 2-3 playing fields at the same time, and also learn to match color and black and white images, just like in the game "Dwarves and Houses"(Ozon, My-shop, Read) from the School of the Seven Dwarfs.

4. Colorful days

This method of introducing color is very popular now. It lies in the fact that within one day (and some even stretch out this pleasure for a whole week), the child very often “comes across” the same color, regularly hears its name and, accordingly, quickly remembers it. So, on red day, you and your baby can dress in red clothes, find all the red toys and even eat red fruits and vegetables. Of course, all this time you will remind your child what color is on your way. Here is a sample list of what you can do on a “colored” day:

    Together with the baby, we look at pre-selected toys of the color being studied;

  • We put on clothes in appropriate colors;
  • We walk around the apartment looking for toys and other objects of the color being studied;
  • While walking, we look for cars of the color we need;
  • Playing with a color sensory box;
  • We look at a book or cards with pictures of the color we need (download an example of cards);

    We sculpt from plasticine using only the color of that day. A similar approach can be used in drawing and appliqué;

  • We play lotto of a given color (see above);
  • We include in the menu products of the studied color (For example, for red day suitable: berries, tomatoes, red apples, pomegranates; For green : grapes, green olives, lettuce, peas, green apples, green beans, kiwi, avocado; For yellow : banana, corn, yellow apples, lemon, butter, cheese, pineapple; For white : rice, cottage cheese, semolina porridge, milk; For orange : carrots, apricot, pumpkin, orange)

5. Doman cards “Colors”

To be honest, I believe that studying colors using Doman cards is the simplest and at the same time the most effective method, especially if we are not talking about too “traditional” tones. Doman classes require a minimum of effort and time, and the colors are almost guaranteed to be remembered, especially if the child has already had experience interacting with cards before. Just remember, in order for the learned colors not to fly out of the child’s head after a month, their names must be consolidate through other games(sort by color, play lotto, etc.).

What is also important: learn only those shades that you yourself distinguish and whose names you are really ready to use in your games and conversations. Don’t get carried away with sets like “100 flowers” ​​from “Umnitsa”. What's the point of learning, for example, the shade purple, if when you encounter it in life, you yourself will most likely call it purple. This will only confuse the child.

My daughter and I started learning colors using cards at 1 year 4 months (by that time Tasya already knew and showed the four primary colors). Over the course of a few days, we memorized another 14 colors from the cards (a total of 18 in our arsenal) and began to mention their names in our games. For those who are skeptical about Doman’s method, I can assure that Taisiya to this day has not forgotten any of the colors she studied then!

Read more about the Doman method and the principles of training here. “Colored” cards can be DOWNLOADED HERE and purchased HERE.

6. Board games

After 2-2.5 years, board games can be used to consolidate knowledge about colors. For example, here is a good option:

Colorama(Ozon, My-shop) and its analogue - the game "Figures", I wrote about them here before.

Educational cartoons

Educational cartoons can be a good help in learning colors. A couple of cartoons on this topic:

Books

Don't forget about books. In poetic and artistic form, you can read about colors, for example, in Marshak’s “The Multi-Colored Book,” or in Suteev’s story “The Rooster and the Colors” (usually published in Suteev’s collections).

From educational books we can recommend:

"Learning colors and numbers"(Ozon, Labyrinth, My-shop),

or similar in design "Big Atlas of Animals"(Ozon, Labyrinth, My-shop). Both there and there, objects/animals of the same color are collected on one spread.

And also a manual with stickers - "What Comes Blue"(Ozon, My-shop, Read).

That's all. As always, I wish you bright and interesting games with your baby! I will be glad to make friends with you on social networks, go to: Instagram, VKontakte, Facebook.

Sincerely yours, Yana Raznachenko

GAMES AND EXERCISES FOR SPEECH DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN 1-2 YEARS OLD

READY PLAN FOR CLASSES WITH A CHILD BY AGE

SIMPLE CRAFTS FROM PLASTICINE FOR CHILDREN 1-2 YEARS OLD (WITH TEMPLATES)

This article contains games aimed at helping a child master the color scheme. In addition to games, it is recommended to talk through the names of colors with your child throughout the day, paying attention to how blue the sky is today or whether the snow is white and fluffy. Name the color of clothes, shoes, fruits. In the process of activity, the child naturally masters the color scheme.

Observing the natural richness of colors helps develop your child's attention, observation and sophisticated color perception. After all, the sky is different every day, in the morning and in the evening, before a thunderstorm and after rain; The color of autumn leaves is unusually rich, and the summer riot of color is amazing.

Match the pairs

Required equipment: several pairs geometric shapes cut from colored paper. The pair must be made up of figures of the same color.

◈ Mix the figures and ask the child to sort them into pairs based on color and shape.

Collect by color

Required equipment: 5 groups of geometric shapes. Each contains figures of the same color, but different shapes.

◈ Mix the elements of the groups and ask the child to choose all the shapes of the same color.

The cube got lost

Required equipment: 4 cubes of different colors.

◈ Invite your child to build a tower or house. During the game, hide one cube. Draw your child's attention to the fact that there are fewer cubes. Ask what color cube is missing.

◈ By complicating the task, increase the number of cubes, expand the color range; hide two or three cubes.

Cleaning

The game helps develop fine motor skills of classifying objects by color.

Necessary equipment: basket or bucket, objects of different colors.

◈ First lay out toys, pencils and other things on the floor. Explain to your child that now you will walk around the room and collect all yellow (red, blue, etc.) objects in a basket.

◈ When looking for objects, consult with your baby: “Is this a yellow pencil? Will we take it?

◈ Pick up something of a different color and try to get your child to explain to you that you are wrong.

Building a tower

The game promotes the development of motor skills, classification, counting, comparison skills

Required equipment: cubes of two colors.

◈ Invite your child to build two towers of different colors, after sorting the cubes. During the construction process, deliberately make mistakes by choosing cubes of the wrong color.

What kind of car is that expensive?

The game promotes the development of attention, helps to study the color range

◈ Draw several cars of different colors.

◈ Ask your child to color the paths underneath. The color of the track must match the color of the car.

Pick up the thread

The game helps to master the color scheme and develops object matching skills.

◈ Draw balloons of different colors. Ask your child to draw strings of the appropriate color to them.

Pictures in numbers

The game promotes the development of colors and helps the study of numbers

Necessary equipment: paper, colored pencils.

◈ Draw a simple drawing with a simple or black pencil. Place the numbers inside the outlines so that each has its own color. The correspondence column can be drawn next to it.

◈ For example, we draw a tree in a meadow: 1 corresponds to brown (tree trunk), 2 to green (tree crown, grass), 3 to yellow (sun), 4 to blue (sky).

◈ Color the picture with your child.

◈ Start with simple drawings and a few numbers. Gradually expand your color range. You can use some symbols instead of numbers.

Every loving parent strives to invest in him, from the very first days of his baby’s life, all the best and most valuable things he has. And if there are usually no problems with choosing good and high-quality things for a child, then the issues of pedagogy and upbringing are important and pressing for many parents. This is especially true for those mothers and fathers who became such for the first time. The questions that interest them can be very different, but they all boil down to one thing: what and how to do in order to convey to the child the knowledge he needs and teach him this or that skill. Let's look at some principles that have been successfully used by other parents for decades, and try to figure out how to teach a child to distinguish colors.

The optimal age for teaching a child to distinguish colors is from 2 to 5 years.

Principles of formation of color perception functions in a child

Before starting to study practical tips and techniques, parents need to familiarize themselves with some features of the development of visual functions in children. This will help you use the acquired knowledge in the right way.

So, a child’s ability to focus on any object appears at the age of 2-3 months. Usually the first thing a baby learns to distinguish is the mother's breast. This is due to the fact that at this age the color perception of the child’s eye is adjusted in such a way that the child can clearly see the mother’s nipple. The colors that he can distinguish between 2 and 6 months are in the wavelength range of a wide spectrum: red, pink, brown. The ability to distinguish short wavelength colors, blue and green, appears closer to the seventh month of life, and full color perception is formed in a child by the age of eight.

Now that we know the basic principles of forming children's perception of the color palette, we can begin to study recommendations and advice from more experienced parents.

  • Teach from an early age. Don't underestimate children's learning abilities. Even if a child cannot speak yet, this does not mean that he is not able to understand or remember something. If you regularly communicate with your baby and tell him what color, for example, his favorite rattle is, this will definitely stick in his head. And in the future, when he can consciously construct different words, it will be easier for you to explain the difference between one color or another;
  • Link new knowledge to emotions. Human memory is designed in such a way that we best remember pictures, vivid images and emotions. It’s not for nothing that they say: a person will remember not what you did for him, but what you made him feel. Use this technique in teaching children. For example, start learning colors with your favorite fruit;
  • Practical use. New knowledge should be used immediately by the child. If you have learned something new with your baby, try to make sure that he begins to apply it in life. You have learned the color red, so when you are going to go out, ask him to bring you his red jacket. The more often you encourage your child to apply what they have recently learned, the better they will remember it all;
  • Encourage your child to share what he has learned with others. After you've learned a new number or color, have your child call grandparent and tell him about it. This principle works very effectively in conjunction with practical application. For example, dad came home from work in the evening and went to wash his hands before eating - let the baby give him a yellow towel;
  • Speak in different phrases. Always say color in different contexts so that the child does not perceive it as one word: this is a red ball, the ball is red, this is a ball, it is red, etc.;
  • Avoid diminutive words (blue, red);
  • Take some time with shades – it’s better to leave all light green, pink and blue shades for later;
  • Don't start learning a new color until your child has mastered the previous one! (we start with red, and then get acquainted with yellow, green, blue).

Although this article is about how to teach your child to distinguish colors, the principles outlined above apply to more than just that. Using them, you can learn both letters and numbers. Below we will look at several effective techniques that will help parents teach their children about the color palette.

Five techniques

There are a huge number of different ways, using which you can teach a child at the age of three to distinguish between six colors (red, blue, yellow, green, white and black), and more. But if you delve into their essence, then almost all of them come down to five simple pedagogical techniques. We will talk about them below.


  1. Informal learning. The essence of this method is to teach the child in the process of everyday communication. For example, on the way to a park or kindergarten, a child is asked to count together the green cars that will pass by him. Naturally, before this, the parent must show the baby what the color green looks like. The effectiveness of this method lies in the fact that the child is given complete freedom of action, no one limits him in anything. He can do whatever he wants along the way, as long as he doesn’t forget to count the green cars. By the way, the number of cars counted doesn’t matter at all either: ten passed, but only two were counted - well done!
  2. Creativity. At this stage, you will need to make sure that the child has paints, pencils, markers or plasticine. Ask your little one to choose the color he likes best and tell him what color it is. Let it be blue. Invite your child to draw something together, for example, a blue circle. Say that this is a blue balloon that does not have a string, and if you do not finish drawing it, the balloon will fly into the sky. Ask the little one what color the lace should be if the ball is blue. The same can be done with plasticine. We also read:
  3. Using toys. Specialized stores for children sell a huge number of educational toys that help them remember numbers, letters and colors. The most productive of them for memorizing colors are pyramids of rings, puzzles and construction sets.
  4. Interactive books. Their effectiveness lies in large colorful pictures that attract the child’s attention. As a rule, such manuals offer all kinds of tasks, by completing which the child simultaneously participates in an exciting game, develops fine motor skills of his fingers and learns the color palette. For example, in the book by Anna Goncharova, the baby is asked to learn colors in poetic form, and in the manual by Olesya Zhukova, the toddler can draw directly in the book with his fingers.
  5. Story games. Come up with simple games in which the child can use his senses. For example, take two multi-colored balls and make houses of the same colors for them. Houses can be painted boxes or sand buckets. Place the balls in the corresponding houses. After everything, take them out of there and tell the baby that they went for a walk. Suddenly a wolf appears from somewhere and wants to eat the balls. They urgently need to be rescued! Tell your child that each ball must be quickly returned to its house, otherwise the wolf will eat them. The essence of such a game is to evoke emotions, empathy and sympathy in the baby. This will activate additional parts of the brain and help you remember the right colors even better.

Using these techniques in their various variations will help achieve good results in the shortest possible time, but remember, each child is individual. All babies develop differently, and in no case can you compare them with each other. If it seems to you that your baby is not learning as quickly as other children, there is no need to panic or be upset.

Learning by playing

It is known that children learn faster through play. Studying flowers is no exception. Therefore, if you want to teach your child to distinguish colors, we recommend using games.

  • Find the color. At the initial stage of study, while the child cannot yet name colors, you can ask him to find objects of a certain color according to the pattern you showed. It is important to first choose items of the same shade. To do this, you can use cubes, mosaic parts or construction sets;
  • Arrange by color. To do this, you can use buttons or bright beads. Invite your child to put, for example, large blue buttons in one box, and small blue ones in another. If there are buttons of different shades of the same color, then you can ask the baby to put them in a row from the lightest to the darkest;
  • Confusion. For the game we need multi-colored pens. Adults remove the caps from them and offer to help the child choose the right caps for certain pens. During the game, you can deliberately choose the wrong cap - the baby will definitely correct you;
  • Cap. Make caps from multi-colored cardboard and place them in front of the child. An adult recites a poem: “I’m going, I’m going to visit on a horse in a yellow hat!” - in this case, the child must choose a cap of the desired color and put it on his head;
  • Find the extra one. Among the four balls, 3 should be one color and 1 another. The child needs to find a ball that is different in color from the others;
  • Funny beads. Make circles of different colors from colored paper or cardboard. Prepare a bead template and invite your child to arrange his beads according to the pattern you suggested;
  • Arrange the balls correctly. An adult pours colorful balls onto the floor and places several boxes. A ball of a certain color is placed in each box. The child needs to collect the balls and put them in the appropriate boxes.

To ensure successful learning, always comment on your actions and end the game as soon as the child shows the first signs of fatigue or loss of interest. And don’t forget to praise your child for every achievement, and then teaching your child to distinguish colors will not be difficult for you.

Toys to help your child learn to distinguish colors

"Hooray. Rainbow". This game is for children 2-3 years old. The child needs to correctly, selecting them by color, arrange the pictures according to the rainbow.

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The game “Halves of a Flower” is also intended for children 2-3 years old. It develops a holistic perception of color. The child needs to match the halves of the flowers by color. You can download the pictures on a color printer and cut them.

The video provides recommendations for teaching children with mental retardation to distinguish colors. You can work with your child at home quite successfully and get amazing results. Systematic creative activities have a beneficial effect on the development of a child’s attention, imagination, memory, fine motor skills, thinking, speech, and help to develop faster, catching up with, and sometimes even ahead of, peers with whom such activities were not conducted.

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For a long time now I have been promising to write an article about how to teach a child to distinguish colors and about how we did it with Taisiya. Judging by the number of questions I receive, this topic interests many mothers. This is not surprising, because knowledge of colors is an integral part of a baby’s sensory development. Getting to know color significantly expands a child’s understanding of the world and allows him to classify all surrounding objects in another way - by color. In addition, the ability to distinguish colors opens up a new layer of interesting educational games for the child.

When does a child begin to distinguish colors?

Experts say that for a child, the world takes on colors within the first 3-4 months of life. Indeed, a child can pay attention to contrasting patterns and react differently to rattles of different colors, but, of course, it is too early to talk about conscious separation of colors at this age. The ability to find a certain color among others, and even more so to name colors, appears in the baby much later. no earlier than 1-1.5 years . Well, the exact timing depends solely on whether you pay attention to studying colors with your child.

You can name colors while playing with your baby for up to a year, and there will be no harm from it. Well, after a year, you can introduce special “color” games, which will be discussed in this article. These games are also suitable for 2-3 year old children who are still confused about the names of colors.

Child's readiness to remember color names you can check it very easily. When playing with cubes (construction sets, balls in a dry pool...), take, for example, a red cube and ask your child to find exactly same, same. If the child understood you and coped with the task, we can say that he distinguishes colors and is ready to learn their names.

Learning colors during everyday games and walks

Generally speaking, I am convinced that in order to teach a child to distinguish primary colors, there is no great need for special classes; it is enough just to regularly name the colors during your regular games. - be sure to pronounce the colors of pencils, build from cubes, construction sets or mosaics - also do not forget to remember the shades of the details. The same applies to dressing, walking, and your other favorite activities - in conversation, constantly name the colors of the objects and gaming materials around you.

Just remember that “learning colors” does not mean that you have to constantly examine the child “Tell me what color it is”, “Show me where red is”, etc. A child, like any other person, does not like being tested on his knowledge, so at first just name the colors and answer your own questions: “Where is the yellow cube? Here he is!" “Let’s draw the grass with a green pencil.”

How to teach a child to distinguish colors? Games

In “sorting” games, the child is required to divide objects into groups, focusing on their color, and you are also required to constantly say the names of colors , so that they are deposited in the baby’s head. What can you sort? Here are some game options:

    You can make a color sorter from any unnecessary box; just cover the box with colored paper and make a few slits. You can push mosaic pieces, multi-colored paper clips, buttons, etc. into the slots. Our sorter is made from a tea box and mosaic pieces. There are sometimes ready-made options.

  • We lay out toys and other small household items on the floor and invite the child to sort them into boxes of the appropriate color. Instead of boxes, you can prepare a large sheet of paper with different colored sections. Our game was much more dynamic when we distributed colored sections between Taisiya and her favorite toy. For example, Tasya took away all the red objects, and the doll Masha took away all the yellow ones.
  • We find a mother hen for each testicle, focusing on color.

Place all the eggs in a cut-off plastic cup attached to the chicken.

You can come up with a huge number of color sorting options; it’s impossible to list them all here. You can place colorful butterflies in flowers, fruits and vegetables in baskets, and settle colorful animals in houses... By the way, in A collection of games from readers there are still good ones.

2. Games from the “Match a Pair” series

Games from the “Match a Pair” category are also well suited for learning colors. You can select lids for houses, caps for gnomes or clowns, housing for colorful people, etc.

You can try this version of the game: lay out the incorrect version in front of your child in advance and ask him to correct the mistakes.

3. Color lotto

Games based on the lotto principle become interesting to children at about a little over a year old. Of course, for now the kids don’t play by adult rules, but simply match cards to the playing field with pictures.

In color lotto, the pictures on each playing field have only one color. (An example of a colored lotto can be DOWNLOAD HERE ). Therefore, to collect such a lotto, the child needs to select cards of a given color from the rest and place them correctly on the field.

In a more complicated version, you can use 2-3 playing fields at the same time, and also learn to match color and black and white images, just like in the game « Gnomes and houses» (Ozon, My-shop, Read) from the School of the Seven Dwarfs.

4. Colorful days

This method of introducing color is very popular now. It lies in the fact that within one day (and some even stretch out this pleasure for a whole week), the child very often “comes across” the same color, regularly hears its name and, accordingly, quickly remembers it. So, on red day, you and your baby can dress in red clothes, find all the red toys and even eat red fruits and vegetables. Of course, all this time you will remind your child what color is on your way. Here is a sample list of what you can do on a “colored” day:

    Together with the baby, we look at pre-selected toys of the color being studied;

  • We put on clothes in appropriate colors;
  • We walk around the apartment looking for toys and other objects of the color being studied;
  • While walking, we look for cars of the color we need;
  • Playing with color;

  • We look at a book or cards with pictures of the color we need ( download sample cards);

  • We play lotto of a given color (see above);
  • We include in the menu products of the studied color (For example, for red day suitable: berries, tomatoes, red apples, pomegranates; For green : grapes, green olives, lettuce, peas, green apples, green beans, kiwi, avocado; For yellow : banana, corn, yellow apples, lemon, butter, cheese, pineapple; For white : rice, cottage cheese, semolina porridge, milk; For orange : carrots, apricot, pumpkin, orange)

5. Doman cards “Colors”

To be honest, I believe that studying colors is the simplest and at the same time the most effective method, especially if we are not talking about too “traditional” tones. Doman classes require a minimum of effort and time, and the colors are almost guaranteed to be remembered, especially if the child has already had experience interacting with cards before. Just remember, in order for the learned colors not to fly out of the child’s head after a month, their names must be consolidate through other games (sort by color, play lotto, etc.).

What is also important: learn only those shades that you yourself distinguish and whose names you are really ready to use in your games and conversations. Don’t get carried away with sets like “100 flowers” ​​from “Umnitsa”. What's the point of learning, for example, the shade purple, if when you encounter it in life, you yourself will most likely call it purple. This will only confuse the child.

My daughter and I started learning colors using cards at 1 year 4 months (by that time Tasya already knew and showed the four primary colors). Over the course of a few days, we memorized another 14 colors from the cards (a total of 18 in our arsenal) and began to mention their names in our games. For those who are skeptical about Doman’s method, I can assure that Taisiya to this day has not forgotten any of the colors she studied then!

Read more about the Doman method and the principles of training. "Colored" cards can be DOWNLOAD HERE and buy HERE.

6. Board games

After 2-2.5 years, board games can be used to consolidate knowledge about colors. For example, here is a good option:

(Ozon, My-shop) and its analogue - game "Shapes", I wrote about them before.

Educational cartoons

Educational cartoons can be a good help in learning colors. A couple of cartoons on this topic:

Books

Don't forget about books. You can read about colors in poetic and artistic form, for example, in the “Colorful Book” Marshak, or in Suteev’s story “The Rooster and the Colors” (usually published in Suteev's collections).

At what age should a child know colors?

At one and a half to two years old, a child can already distinguish colors visually well. Between two and three years, when the child begins to speak, it makes sense to start learning the names of colors.

How to teach a child to distinguish colors?

Simple and effective method- focus on colors in everyday life. While walking, playing, reading, pay attention to the colors. Start with the most basic ones, avoiding shades. While playing with your child, note that the car is blue, the cube is yellow, and the ball is red. Ask him to give you this or that item of a certain color. In a playful way, you can start looking for all green objects in the room.

What will help you learn colors?

Multi-colored cubes, balloons, crayons, colored paper or cardboard, pencils, educational books. With older children (about 4 years old and older), you can color the coloring pages with felt-tip pens.

Anything else?

Engage with your child regularly. Kindly correct his mistakes and praise his successes. Be patient and success will not take long to arrive.

Rainbow colors for children

Rainbow is an incredibly beautiful natural phenomenon. It looks like a multi-colored arc made up of colors (from the outer edge: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). These are the seven colors that are usually identified in the rainbow in Russian culture. Below are visual pictures for teaching your child the basic colors.

The order of the colors is easy to remember using the mnemonic phrase: “ TO every O hunter and wants h nah, G de With goes f adhan." There are other options: " TO ak O once AND ak- h lantern G city With broke f onar. ( TO ak ABOUT once AND en Z lantern G tin WITH carried F onar)" and " TO from O slu, and Irafu, h Ike G blue With sewed f Ufaiki." In these sentences, each first letter in a word represents the initial letter of a color.

Rainbow color cards

Poem about colors

I'm in my grandmother's garden
I'll find a lot of red:
This is red raspberry
Nearby there is a red viburnum,
And they matured at the fence
Two handsome tomatoes.

Orange apricot
Grew on a tree.
Grew up, matured,
And I ate it.

These are yellow chickens.
Look, they are running somewhere.
Apparently mom is in the yard
Found a worm in the grass.

Here are the green frogs
And green grass.
In a swamp at the edge of the forest
You can hear a friendly “kwa-kwa!”

In summer the sky is above you
Blue-blue!
Bells underneath
Let's draw it blue.

Blue ball over the track
Flies into the clouds.
Wave your hand at him:
- Goodbye! Bye!

The eggplant lies in the garden -
Purple barrel.
And inside there is a sweet plum
A worm has settled in.

Children begin to distinguish colors well only at 2–4 years old. But you can prepare your baby for discrimination on a sensory level - use treasure boxes. In Montessori pedagogy, they are offered to children from 6 months to obtain information about the sensory properties of objects.

Fill the box with things of the same color. Since this is a sensory activity, it is not necessary to identify and remember the names. When presenting the box to your baby, say: “Look, everything here is red!”, but don’t insist that he remembers.

How to learn colors withtwo-year-old children

  • Sorting.

Before moving on to learning names, let your child practice discrimination in sorting games. At first, offer extremely simple sortings of 2-3 colors. Identical objects are placed by hand in containers of the corresponding color.

Gradually make the sorting more difficult, for example, let them sort items with tongs, a spoon, or tweezers.

  • Exercise with plasticine.

Make cakes together from red, yellow, green and blue plasticine. Prepare buttons, sequins, beads of the same colors. Invite the children to glue them onto plasticine. This activity also perfectly develops motor skills.

  • Exercises with tablets.

When sorting is no longer difficult, enter names. Make paired signs in different colors. Enter names three-step lesson:

Stage 1: show 3 signs and say “This is red, blue, yellow.”

Stage 2: ask your child to point to a sign of the color you name.

Step 3: Ask the name of each sign.

How to learn colorswith three year old children

By age three, children can often remember several names. If this doesn't happen, don't worry: continue with the sorts and other exercises below.

  • Selection of objects from the environment.

The child matches small toys to each colored plate. This teaches the perception of shades: red is rarely the same, but the child needs to choose the closest match.

  • A box with things from home.

This is a more abstract activity: children do not see signs in front of them. You give a basket and ask to put everything yellow in the house or classroom there. Do not forget that everything collected will need to be put in its place.



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