Learning colors is a huge part of toddlerhood. Ella naturally became interested in colors without any prompting from me.

One day she just started asking me to name colors.

And didn’t stop.

For weeks, she would point to things and say their color or ask me to say it.

This being my first child, I was delighted to play along.

What If My Child Isn’t Interested in Learning Colors?

If your child hasn’t shown an interest in learning colors, an easy way to start is by working color names into everyday conversations, such as at lunchtime.

“My tomatoes are red. Your strawberries are red.”

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Talk about colors as you read books together.

“Elmo is red. Do you see anything else here that is red?”

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? is a longtime favorite of ours. Each page spread features a brightly colored animal, such as a blue horse, green frog, purple cat, or white dog. The last spread shows all the animals and is perfect for asking little ones to name the colors and animals they read about in the book.

Ella also loves My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss. I like to think of this book as the original Inside Out. Emotions are assigned different colors and the end, comes a crazy, multicolor, mixed-up day! “But it all turns out all right, you see. And I go back to being . . . me.”

A Color of His Own by Leo Lionni is about a chameleon who is sad that he changes colors when all the other animals have their own color. In then end, he finds another chameleon friend who sticks by his side through all their color changes just so they can be the same color together.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? || My Many Colored Days || A Color of His Own

These three books are our favorites for introducing colors in a natural way.

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Sing songs about colors.

Ella loved this Little Baby Bum song:

“Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet ma-ake a rainbow.”

She would sing that over. And over. And over. And over…

Until she learned: “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world!”

Try playing “I Spy” at the grocery store or as you go for walks.

“I spy with my little eye something green.”

Or try a fun scavenger hunt!

Give Tons of Examples!

The more examples you give, the easier it will be for your tot to realize you’re talking about color, not size, or texture, or shape, or any number of attributes an object can have. Learning colors is a tough concept!

Kids are sponges, and even if they don’t show it, they are soaking up your words and filing them away in their brains.

Toddlers and preschoolers need sensory stimulation for growth and development

So try not to get frustrated and have a little patience!

Learning colors is not that easy when you are also learning EVERYTHING about the world at the same time.

Plus, there are so many different shades of the same color. Even now, my husband and I will disagree on whether teal is more blue or more green.

(FYI, it’s blue.)

How We Did It: Color Sorting Sensory Bin

I love muted colors and neutral shades when it comes to home decor and especially kids stuff!

But when my mom bought these brightly colored bowls for Ella:

Color sorting sensory items and bowls being played with by our toddler.

It inspired me to come up with a color sorting activity.

I raided the craft closet for small matching colored items to make a color sorting sensory bin to go along with the bright bowls.

Though this was thrown together at the last minute, I really love this color sorting sensory bin.

It is such a great assortment of fun shapes, textures, and colors!

All the little things and bright colors in there makes both me and Ella excited to play!

There’s so much to look at:

Look at all the color of these sensory items!

–plastic eggs
-food lids (from pureed food pouches)
–colored craft sticks
–pom poms
–pipe cleaners that I twirled around my finger to make curlicue shapes

Anything that can fit in the colored bowls and somewhat matches the color is fair game!

You and your toddler will love looking at each object together and matching colors. You’ll be able to work those color names easily into conversation in a way that won’t make your toddler feel like he is being forced to learn.

Sensory bins are a great tool for teaching and entertaining your toddler and also for learning color. Try this popcorn sensory bin or this peppermint sensory bin that also can be used to introduce magnets.

Essential Skills We Are Working On

In addition to learning color names and matching colors, we did a little spatial recognition (understanding how objects take up space).

I loved having the plastic eggs because it added that dimension to the game. Ella would hide pom poms or food lids in the matching colored eggs, but she learned that the popsicle sticks wouldn’t fit in the eggs.

Sensory bowls that have been sorted by color.

Add a pair of tongs!

Adding a pair of tongs easily turns this color sensory bin into fine motor practice. Here Ella used the tongs to separate the pom poms from the other plastic items, and now she is working on getting the food lids.

By doing this, she’s sorting the items by type instead of by color. It may not seem earth-shattering, but she has shown that she understands how these objects have different attributes: color, size, texture.

The color sorting in action — Why have just one pair of tongs when you can have two!

There are so many ways to play with this easy-to-put-together sensory bin. AND everything packs up nicely for clean up time.

This is what the sensory bin
looks like when it is stored. Look at all the bright colors.

What If We’re Still Learning Colors?

I would recommend starting out with one color in many shades and letting her play with and explore the objects. Use the color name as much as you can as you play with the objects together.

Do this with a few more colors, if she is still interested, revisiting favorite colors as often as you can.

Then try doing the sorting activity with two colors, then three, then four, etc.

Keep things light and fun. Your child will learn colors eventually! No need to freak out if he or she doesn’t seem to get it right away.

Our First Color Sort

The first time Ella did a color sort, I gave her red and green bowls and just five of each color pom poms.

I gradually increased the number of colors, mixing up the type of object to sort as we repeated colors. Just to keep things fresh.

Now that she is a pro, we have introduced all kinds of objects and shades of the same color.

After sorting the craft sticks by colors, our toddler started sorting the colored pom poms into the bowls.

Your Turn!

It’s time for you to add some color into your toddler’s day with this cool color sorting sensory bin!

Supplies

–colored bowls
-any small object that matches the colored bowls and fits in it (plastic eggs, food lids, colored craft sticks, pom poms, bent pipe cleaners, blocks, balls, ABC magnets, etc.)
-tongs or scoop (optional)

How to make and play with a color sorting sensory bin

Put all the small objects in a large container.
Arrange the colored bowls in a row or two.
Invite your child to play! Look at the objects together. Name all the colors. Pick out your favorite things and colors. Or, depending on his or her age and development, you may not need to do much. Just sit back and watch the color magic happen!