Color Theme: Blue

I love me a good theme, so I’m excited that Wee One is old enough to “get” them now.  At 17 months old, he’s definitely too young to be expected to know his colors, but it’s never to early to help him become aware of different colors. And besides, colors are fun!

Color Learning Tip # 1: 2 and 3 year olds won’t necessarily understand and know all of their colors.  Children as old as 6 can still confuse colors frequently.  The U.S. Department of Health’s standard is for children to be able to identify 4 colors at the end of age 5.

Blue Sensory Box

Inclusions:

• Ball pit balls
• Wood blocks
• Feather
• Magnetic letters
• Mega Bloks
• Sensory ball
• Counting bears w/cup
• Cookie cutter
• Tambourine
• Rubber duck
• Colored pencil
• Flash cards
• Batman!

Total Spent: $0

I had every intention of adding some rice to this box, but Matthew woke up from his nap before I got there.  He was so excited to jump right in, I left it as is.  He didn’t seem to mind!  We kept it out for a week before switching it.  I kept finding other blue things in the box, too, like his boots and blue pants!

Blue Books

There are plenty of books that teach colors, so I picked up a few all inclusive ones, but for each color I tried to choose one “special” book to focus on.

1. Little Blue Truck. This was our special book for blue. I found the big book (think 2′ x 2′) at TJ Maxx for a couple dollars.This book was perfect for his age–trucks, cars, animals, dirt…it’s so cute I even designed a sensory box around it a month later.

2. Monsters Love Colors. This book is UHmazing.  The illustrations are fun, and there’s so much you could do with it–primary colors, color blending, art projects.  This his favorite right now, and he can even point out all the colors on the last page (though I think it’s more memorizing than actually knowing colors).  Still, it’s a fun trick to show off to the grandparents. 🙂

3. The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse. This was geared towards “blue”, but included all colors as well.  In true Eric Carle fashion, we have red crocodiles, black polar bears, and green lions.  It’s a very, very simple story, but Matty loves it.

Crafts

Wee One wasn’t really into crafts a couple months ago (my how things change!), so we kept it simple.

• Blue playdough on the playdough tray (he loves for me to roll it into little balls so he can squash it with his fingers, and making snakes, of course)
• Blue stamping–use the eraser end of a pencil to make dots.
• Blue collage–write BLUE on a large sheet of easel paper. Color blue pictures, use blue stickers, and glue down blue tissue paper squares.

The result?

Me: What do you want for dinner?
Matty: Blue

Me: Where’s your shoes?
Matty: Blue

Me: What time is it?
Matty: Blue

Okay, okay. To his credit, he does indeed know blue.  He can pick the blue crayons out of the box, he can identify blue objects around the house, and if I ask him to pick a blue shirt from his dresser, he can!

Psst. I’m linked up with Toddler Tuesday @ myhealthyhappyhome. Click on over for other toddler fun!