Colors galore

Colors galore

To fill your days with colourful fun, present a theme called "Colors galore" and review the colors you have explored with little ones in the past.

AREA SETUP

Kites
During summer months, colourful kites are easy to find in stores. Hang a few from the ceiling in your daycare. You can also hang your parachute from the ceiling to create a colourful "sky".

ROUTINES AND TRANSITIONS

A trip to local vendors
If you are lucky enough to have indoor or outdoor vendors near your daycare, visit them with your group. Fruit, vegetable, or flower stands are all bursting with colors and fun to visit with children. Name the colors you see with the children in your group.

Multicolored lunch
Prepare a multicolored lunch. Use colourful plastic plates, placemats, and drinking glasses. Arrange a colourful bouquet of flowers in the centre of the table or colourful tea lights (battery operated, supervision required) to create a pretty centrepiece. Serve food items with contrasting colors.

SENSORY ACTIVITIES (look)

Water and food coloring
You will need a small kiddie pool or a large container filled with water (can be done indoors or outdoors). Babies and toddlers should see you add a drop of food coloring to the water. Encourage them to watch closely to see what happens. Let them stir the water and then add a drop of food coloring of a different color.

Water and food coloring-2
In the yard, deposit several containers filled with water on the ground. Add a different color of food coloring to each container. The result will be very pretty. Let babies and toddlers explore the containers. Add objects that can be manipulated in the water (plastic boats, sieves, figurines, etc.).

SENSORY ACTIVITIES (taste)

Multicolored Popsicles
Purchase (or make) colourful Popsicles and let children enjoy them as a snack. Name the colors with your group.

SENSORY ACTIVITIES (touch)

Container filled with feathers
Fill a container with colourful feathers. Let children toss the feathers up in the air and use them to tickle their friends to the sound of music. Name the colors.

ARTS & CRAFTS

Collective project-Multicolored flower
As a group, make a gigantic flower. Cut each flower petal out of a different color of construction paper. Let each baby or toddler draw on his/her petal and let them decorate their petal as they wish. Arrange the petals to create a big flower and display it on a wall.

Multicolored quilt
Felt represents a surface that is perfect for painting. Have each child paint on a square piece of felt. Glue (or sew) the pieces together to create a quilt. Display your colourful quilt on a wall.

My multicolored aquarium
The word "multicolored" makes me think of fish. Hang a large piece of blue paper or cardboard on a wall to represent an aquarium. Print several different fish shapes (write "fish" in the educatall club's search engine) and have children color them as they wish. When they are done, invite them to stick their fish in your aquarium. If you prefer, you can make individual aquariums. Simply give each child a sheet of blue construction paper.

MORAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITIES

Multicolored fruit salad (group activity)
Sit at a table with your group. Very young children will enjoy watching you prepare a colourful fruit salad. Let them manipulate and taste pieces of fruit while you are cutting them (depending on their age). Name each type of fruit and its color. Each time you cut a new fruit, show children what it looks like inside. You can ask parents to provide a fruit their child particularly likes. Children will be proud to share their fruit with the group. Try to incorporate each child's fruit in your fruit salad. Toddlers can cut bananas with plastic knives. They will love to help! Let them help you add the fruit pieces to a large bowl too. Pour fruit juice in small glasses and let them pour the juice in the bowl. Finally, children can take turns stirring the fruit salad. Name the colors you see in your salad.

Multicolored feet
Instead of organizing a day when children must wear clothing items of a specific color, ask parents to have their children wear multicolored socks or two mismatched socks (of a different color). Remove children's shoes and admire their socks. Name the colors you see.

COGNITIVE ACTIVITIES

Toddlers can play with Smarties
With older toddlers, pour several pieces of Smarties candy in a large bowl. Name the colors with your group and then ask them to take all the candy pieces of a certain color out of the bowl (red candy pieces for example). You may also decide to have children associate identical colors by dropping the blue candy pieces in a blue bowl, the green candy pieces in a green bowl and so on. At the end of the activity, divide the candy pieces among the children in your group.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND MOTOR SKILLS

A bed sheet and multicolored balls
For this activity, you will need an old bed sheet. If you wish, let children draw or paint on it with several different colors. Cut holes out of the bed sheet, big enough for your multicolored balls to easily fit through. Hang the bed sheet in your daycare or in your yard and encourage children to throw the balls through the holes.

Multicolored balls
If you have a ball tent or pit, set it up. Babies and toddlers will love to explore the colourful balls.

LANGUAGE ACTIVITIES

Multicolored mice hiding in books
In the educatall club, type "mice" in the search engine. Print several copies of the document and color the mice with bright colors. Laminate them and slide them between the pages of your books. When children explore the books in your reading corner, they will discover colourful mice. Each time a child finds a mouse, name the color.

Chantal Millette
Early childhood educator

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