Color Flashcards are a great tool for your toddler to explore colors. When your toddler starts to show an interest in colors you can use color flashcards for comparing, sorting, and matching activities.
I made FREE Color Flashcards for you. Find it at the end of the article.
So, How Do Toddlers Learn Colors?
In general, toddlers will start to learn the colors around their 18 months. But the window when they will understand the concept is quite big: from as quick as 18 months and till 3,5 years.
Understanding colors is a cognitive milestone – learning colors is an abstractive concept so don’t worry too much if your toddler hasn’t shown any interest in colors yet.
Why is that?
First, among learning what each color is called, toddlers need to find out, what color represents: it is not the name of the object, nor shape or size or texture, etc. They also need to find out that we can see many different shades of the same color.
Usually, at the time they started to show an interest in colors, children don’t have the verbal skills to explain observations I mentioned above to you.
But, use the language of colors whenever they come up in your conversations, no matter how old your baby or toddler is. The world around us is full of colors; you can describe what you are eating today (red apple, orange carrots, yellow banana, green spinach, red tomato, etc.), what you see when you go for a walk (green tree, red rose, yellow flower, blue sky, white cloud, brown soil, etc.), or when you are dressing (you have such a nice blue T-shirt).
Anyway.
When a child becomes curious about colors, grab the opportunity, and talk about the colors even more. You can start with one but not more than some colors. I remember when my son started to show an interest in colors, I started with one color – white.
I chose this color because Oskar was very excited about cars at the time. Many cars around us are white or black. And black was our next color. Of course, choose according to the toddler’s interests and what you often see around you.
Next, I added 4 other colors: yellow, red, green, and blue. We played a lot with Duplo and those are the colors of the cubes 😉 And at this point, I started using color flashcards, too.
It’s great at this point if you offer activities with as many different objects as you can. Because colors are an abstract concept due to the fact, that one color suits many different objects. Grouping similarly colored objects can help separate the colors from the name of the objects.
And Color Flashcards can be a great tool because you can use it in so many different ways:
- you can practice a language when showing cards with colors,
- you can print double and make a matching game,
- you can play a game: Point the (blue).
- you can use flashcards to put other objects with the same colors on the cards (Duplos, pom-poms, buttons, ribbons, stoppers, color pencils, cars etc.)
- you can play a game: What color is (a banana)? and toddlers should pick up the right card,
- etc.
I found a great article where you can read more in detail about how to teach kids colors.
About Free Color Flashcards Printables
I made these simple Color Flashcards to help you teach young kids their colors. The set includes 11 flashcards: white, yellow, orange, red, pink, violet (or is it purple?), green, blue, brown, black, and gray.
I made two versions for you – one with English names on, and another with blank spaces, so you can write down words in your own language.
I also tried to make color flashcards as real as possible (without the real pictures 🙂 ), so I create colors as I would use the brush with paint.
Edit: I made a new version of PDF color flashcards, which is more friendly for printing.
Each sheet contains 4 (or 3) colors, so it’s easy to print out. Then cut them out and you are ready for many color-activities! You can also use the laminator or print on the thicker paper.
Because my son loves working with materials that are from fabric or felt, I also made color flashcards out of felt! You can find FREE pattern & tutorial in my Quiet book patterns library – Felt Color Flashcards!
Other Great Activities for Learning Colors
My son loves:
- coloring with crayons and color pencils,
- playing small basketball with pom-poms and small balls of different colors,
- Outside, we play Show me something (yellow) game.
- Activity pages I made for him (more bellow)
I created a Color Pencils activity card for him. It’s great to use different materials for activities and my son loves everything out of fabric or felt.
The activity is really easy to make and you don’t need any sewing skills. You can make a card in the no-sew technique, using a hot glue gun, felt glue, or permanent fabric glue. Here you cand find FREE pattern and tutorial for Color Pencils activity page.
Another great activity page I made for him is Ladybug maze. Just three colors and the activity is great for fine motor skills.
We also learned colors with the Hippo Activity Page. When we were playing with the activity, I was asking him what color is Hippo’s toothbrush, what is his, and other similar questions.
If you don’t want to go on search hunt of materials you need, I offer you DIY Kits with all the materials you need for these activities, everything pre-cut.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.
I hope you get some ideas about what activities you can do for a child to learn colors. I also hope you will like these free color flashcards and free patterns above.
Oh, and here is your FREE Printable – Color Flashcards!
Enjoy!
