I’ve read that colors can be a challenge to teach, because they are such an abstract concept. It can be hard for a toddler to understand that “red truck” means the truck is red, but doesn’t mean that ONLY trucks can be red. Red is a color that can be applied to many things. Color, like other adjectives, therefore can be confusing! Continued repetition of these concepts is important, as well as showing different ways they can be used. Using phrases like “the truck is red” rather than “red truck” can be helpful because then the child can start to understand that the term red doesn’t just apply to that truck.
Anyways! I am trying to start teach colors to Carter and I decided to start with the color red! I have seen the idea of doing a color scavenger hunt floating around so I decided to give it a try!
The night before the scavenger hunt I “hid” red items around the downstairs in places I knew Carter could easily see them. I used paper shapes, pompoms, pipe cleaners and craft sticks! I grabbed a brown bag and wrote the word red on it with a red crayon. All set!
Carter saw the shapes I had taped up first and tried immediately to grab at them! I used that to start off our game and explained to him we were finding red things. I showed him the bag and had him put the first red items in the bag.
After collecting a bunch of red items, Carter decided that stage two of the game was to remove them all from the bag and play with them! Which is fine because it still gave us the opportunity to talk about the color red so it went along with the purpose of this game.
Eventually, however, Carter decided the craft sticks belonged in a hole in the floor (from where the previous owners had their cable wires) and started collecting only craft sticks and running over to stick them down the hole! I’m not 100% sure where the hole leads to so I still haven’t found those craft sticks!
Carter took a little break and played with his red items.
Overall I thought this activity was fun and a good way to introduce a color. However, I’m not so sure Carter was ready for the scavenger hunt aspect of it. Mostly I “found” the items and handed them to him to put in his bag. He loved putting stuff in his bag and taking it out, so we were still able to use the word “red” and talk about how each item was red. I will probably wait a few months to do another color scavenger hunt when he is ready to try looking for the items himself!
Here is how long this activity took:
Color Scavenger Hunt: about 10 minutes, plus a few extra minutes here and there throughout the day as new items were found
Stay tuned! More toddler activity reviews to come! Do you have a
fun toddler activity you think I should try? I’m looking for ideas so
please let me know!
fun toddler activity you think I should try? I’m looking for ideas so
please let me know!
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