Teaching Colors

My son knows his colors, but doesn't recognize letters or numbers. I often get the "I don't know" response...and often I don't know if he's being silly or really doesn't know.

1 thing I did to help learn colors was "color of the week/day/ etc." I would have him wear a red shirt, use a red spoon, drink out of his red cup, have red strawberries for a snack, etc. I would do that everyday with the same color until he started to know red. It took 2 or 3 days per color. That seemed to work for us. Good Luck!

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Hi J.,
I, like the other moms who responded to you, would not sweat that he's not well versed in his colors. I really try to put things into perspective with some advice someone gave me once, "will he be 13 and not know his alphabet? (colors, numbers, etc)". I do have an idea that you could try that would be fun for your son. You could go to a home store and pick up all the main colors in paint swatch squares. Attach those paint swatches to a half sheet of poster board and print the name of each color underneath. You could then get it laminated to preserve it for awhile. We did this and played a game out of it with our boys' toys. They had to find a toy that matched blue (for example). So they would find a blue toy and sit it on the posterboard. It helped to reinforce their learning and really made it fun. Eventually this also helped with recognizing the words that went along with each color also. I hope this idea helps a little :)

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Not sure if anyone has mentioned this or not, but have you thought that he may be color blind? My nephew is...his favorite colors were red and green, because those were the only colors he ever saw. This was not found out until he was in Kindergarten when he couldn't get his colors straight. He is 16 now and has adapted quite well. You never know, your little man may just not see all the colors, which could be causing his fustration. You see them, but he may only see things as shades of green. Just a thought. Good luck and God Bless.

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You got some great answers, are you involved locally with Parents As Teachers, they would have some good information for you. Color learning starts with being able to match colors, there are learning tools you can buy like the color bears that come with matcing cups, so, the child can match the color to the right cup, or you can make your own with paper plates and his own toys. That is the first step and then being able to say show me the green one is the next step, and then after that saying what color is this is next. So, maybe start out with a racing color matching game, run to your room with this color plate or bowl and find something that matches this color.... the boys have to be moving you know to make it fun!!! And like someone else mentioned, just saying to him oh look you are wearing your blue shirt today and leave it at that, dont quiz him over and over, or you will be getting that answer of I dont know!! Take your time and have fun!!! And call your school dist to sign up for Parents As Teachers, it is a free program in MO open to all children prenatal to kindg age. Good luck!! A.

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He's doing well, J., if he knows all the stuff you are listing while he's still this young. Don't push the color issue just yet - just keep talking and be happy about it with him - don't get frustrated. In 6 months, perhaps the light bulb will have turned on and the color recognition will be there. What is most important at this age is to let him play instead of trying so hard to "teach" him. Play is work, and the best learning he can do at 3 years old.

Best to you,
D.

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J.,
A fabulous resource my husband and I have used with our son is http://literacycenter.net/

My husband found it last year since our son loved our computer (I guess it's the day and age we live in, huh?) and it has games and fun activities to help little ones learn colors, shapes, numbers, and letters. We try to do it everyday with our son (now 2.5) and he knew his upper case alphabet by shortly after his second birthday.

Good luck! :)

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With my son, I picked one color per week. For example, if the color was yellow, we got into the car and drove around and picked out everything yellow - bus, digger, signs, etc. Works at the grocery store with food and packages as well.
Also curious george games on PBSkids.org has a shapes/colors game.
Good luck!

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Lots of answers so I don't know if this was mentioned by anyone else, but our daughter got a DVD for her first birthday, and she literally knew all her colors within a month. She's 2 1/2 and hadn't seen the video in at least 6 months, and we watched it last week, and she still liked it (has asked to watch it several times since), so I would think a 3 year old would like it, too? It's by Preschool Prep Company, and it's called "Meet the Colors". I think you have to order it online, www.preschoolprepco.com. It gives each color a character - blue is a skiier, orange is a cowboy, etc. We would just show three or four color segments at a time - about 15 minutes. If I were you, I wouldn't mention anything about colors for awhile. Order the video, and when it comes, let him watch however much he wants to in one sitting. And when it's over, don't mention colors again. Then offer to let him watch it again the next day. I bet he'll start talking about them on his own.

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It is possible that your son is color blind. I had suspected that my son was as he would often mix up his colors -- but not always. Or he would be trying to color something green and he would pick up a brown crayon. When I asked the Kindergarten teacher, she said she didn't notice. Well, she was wrong. To be tested for real, you have to be old enough to recognize numbers well (the shapes of the numbers in the test are not necessarily the easiest to recognize for little kids). The following is a link to a page that shows the color blindness tests:
http://www.toledo-bend.com/colorblind/Ishihara.asp

We did finally get confirmation from the eye doctor that my son is color blind (not just red/green but other colors or shades of colors as well) when he was in Second Grade. It is way more common for a boy to be color blind than a girl per our eye doctor. There is nothing that can be done for color blindness, it is just something the child will live with. Even though my son fails all of the color blindness tests, for the most part he can tell you what color things are. It is kind of funny sometimes though when he will call something a color and it isn't that (we just have to remember that he is color blind). The eye doctor just said, hopefully when he grows up he will just marry someone that isn't color blind so she can make sure his clothes match/don't clash. Otherwise, it really doesn't affect him.

Hopefully your son isn't color blind and just doesn't know his colors because he is only 3, but if he is, it really is okay.

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My daughter is a bit younger, but we never use pressure when learning new things (like colors). We are currently teaching colors, but instead of having guided learning activities, we are simply pointing out the color of everything we encounter, for example when playing or drawing. I never asked her back what the color is, but she has started pointing them out when she recognizes them.
Just keep at it and slow down your expectations. If you have serious concerns about his physical ability to distinguish colors, ask your pediatrician.

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I think you're expecting too much too soon from a 3 yr old. It takes time to learn all the "basics" and if you push him too hard, he'll regress and sometimes on purpose. There are lots of books and interactive games, etc. that deal with learning and he'll just come by it naturally if you give it time. I doubt he's color blind as some others have suggested. I think he's just little and he needs time to continue to develop and learn.

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My son was the same way when he was 3. He would answer orange for everything. He just had no interest in learning his colors whatsoever. But now he is 4 and knows all his colors. He just learned them in his own time.

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I spy is a great game for learning colors and you can play it anywhere. We always play while waiting in line at the store or waiting for the doctor at doctor appointments. It is more funt than just drilling the child and they are so proud when they figure it out.

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Hi J.,

I would recommend trying to teach him something else that is a bit more interesting right now. You can always point out colors throughout the day but I would imagine that your little guy has sensed your frustration and feels pressure from you. You could switch your focus to science -- it is amazing what those little ones can pick up when it is new and interesting! I remember studying the water cycle, planets, fish (animals of all kinds) and flowers with my little ones. We did a lot of art and I didn't expect them to learn a great deal about each thing. If they just became familiar with the planet names or how the water cycle worked, that was enough for now.

Best wishes,
A.

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Development happens at it's own pace in different areas, and it's a good idea to stay cognizant of where your son's strengths and weaknesses are. "Asking over and over again" is NOT FUN, and could very well be creating anxiety or resistance to the process. And of course boys might also have some degree of color blindness (my husband can barely detect a difference between green and red).

Don't push colors, just enjoy them. And please don't compare your son to other kids. This can damage his sense of himself as a unique and capable person. If you're interested in pursuing the question of color blindness, you can google for lots of information.

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Try saying Oh look you put on your green shirt!! When he put on his red one. See if he gets it. He probably will
You have done all the right things and I bet he knows his colors. Just keep sayign Here is your blue cup with milk.
Or give him a choice do you want the blue one or the red one?

You've been given a lot of good ideas and obviously he isn't interested in colors right now but I would suggest reading to him a lot, Books like The Hungry Little Caterpillar, that show color and then you can say the 'red strawberry', etc. as you talk about it. There are so many other books that have all one page the same color too. I know it shows that very plainly so maybe he would catch on in time that way, but he will eventually anyhow. It's so fun to read to them and you could go to a store that sells educational things as well as books, like Mardels, and buy books like this with color on one page. Here is the link to Mardels and I'm sure there are other places that sell educational material. http://www.mardel.com/
I liked the idea someone already gave of getting color swatches from a store and when we moved I babysat our grandson he 'helped' me pick colors for our new house. He knew all the names of every color out there almost. It was fun for him and he knew 'tomato red' and 'crimson red' not just 'red'. It was actually funny to hear him talk about colors. It's worth a try to do that but make it fun.

i don't think he's color blind. children learn different stuff at different stages. i have twins, one learned the letters and sounds in a day, while the other one struggled with these for two weeks. then the struggling one learned how to read level 1 and 2 books before turning 4 while the letter-sound genius took a year (almost age five) to start reading level 1 and level 2 books. i just learned some kids learn some things faster other things slower.
here's an idea: get a red cube or whatever and say red red red a few times. don't ask him anything. do that with 2-3 colors at a time. let's say green, blue, and red. but don't ask him to say anything. take a break. then put those cubes (or whatever you're using) in a pile, stand a bit further form them with your son in between and say could you give mommy the red cube? see which one he brings. he may get it wrong a few times. do this exercise for a few days. once he gets those main colors, continue with three different colors (yellow, purple, orange). let him learn 6 colors with one week. after you have done that put same shade colors in one pile like purple, orange and red (same shade). see if that works.
gosh i just reread what i wrote. hope you can make some sense from what i am suggesting.
bottom line, likelihood is he's not color blind. have you ever taken him to an eye doctor? (should have at least one visit by now). they would have noticed if something was amiss.
good luck

Kids just learn things at different times. My 3 1/2 year old has known colors for a year but can't count past 13 or get all the alphabet right without help. Everyone learns things at their own rate, so I wouldn't worry about it.

One of our favorite games is Twister. I don't worry about left or right, but will say "Put your foot on red, put your hand on blue." He loves it, and has known his colors (at least the 4 from Twister!) since he was 2.

He's just bored with it. My grand daughter did the same thing.
I got some M&M's and held out a handful of them. I pointed to each one and when she could correctly identify the color, she could eat that M&M. Amazing how quickly she learned her colors ! LOL !

P.S. .... if he is color blind, he would be showing an interest in learning the colors, but would CONSISTENTLY mix up the same two colors, such as calling red, green. Color blind people can't differentiate between red and green. They look the same to them. I REALLY don't think this is his "problem". He is SMART and colors are boring to repeat. That's all.

I'm just starting to teach preschool to my 3 year old daughter where as she does know most of her colors she is very stubborn and won't do it when you ask her to. I'm using the website lettersoftheweek.com for our preschool curriculum check it out under pre-curriculum

Maybe your son senses your frustration and he is deciding not to perform for you? I've noticed that with my kids from time to time. I would try not questioning him, but rather try catching him in the act. Get him to sort clothes with you and see how he does. Tell him you need help getting all the blue clothes together. Then ask him for the red clothes, etc. When you are playing tell him you would like to play with the yellow ball with him. Do you have Candyland Castle? My kids loved that game and so did I. It is much quicker than Candyland and involves sorting colors and shapes.

For what it is worth, my 4.5 year old knows all her colors, animals and their sounds, the alphabet but not all her numbers to 20.

Best of luck to you.

This is one of our favorite books and it goes through all the colors:
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Night-Sweet-Butterflies-Dreaml...

GL!

oh honey. i think you're right - he's tired of answering the same questions over and over again! insead of "what color is that car?" ask, "can you find the...BLUE car?" change it up a bit. my son went through this too, and i really think he just got tired of answering color after color. it was even around the same age. lay off the colors for awhile. sesamestreet.org and websites like that (kids' channels like nickjr etc) have great games that are very educational. quiz him in practical ways (can you bring me the red cup?) and i bet you'll see he knows them. good luck!

Try reading books that incorperate colors. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? My daughter now "reads" the first page and I read the second page and then turn the page. You could have him make the sounds of the animals, too! That way he gets to do something he can and likes to do.

Keep it fun and just keep talking about the color of different things around you. If he doesn't like you asking him "what is that color?" then don't. Just tell him the colors in everyday language.

If you're really worried, get him tested for color blindness. They have little books with dots with different colors that if you can see the color, you can see a number or shape in the dots.

Best wishes. Don't give up, but don't get frustrated.

with my son we did several fun things to learn colors. i also got frustrated when i taught and taught and asked and asked, and never got the answer i expected. with our son we sometimes sat down with coloring books and colored certain things on the picture first, whatever he picked to color first. then only after we had already colored it together i would ask, now what color is mr.potato heads hat..or his shoes or nose. that seemed to start working the best with him. he enjoyed coloring with us so i think that may have something to do with how well that went for us because it was something he really enjoyed and so it was more fun for him to learn it.

pbskids.com is really cute an very educational for them at that age. they have all the favorite characters on there from the pbs kids channel. My nephew loves it is there just about every day that he is on puter with me. Hope it helps