Welcome to the classroom! We love to play, learn, create and sing together in the classroom, and we’d like to encourage our classroom friends to keep learning and playing at home once Caitie’s Classroom is over. We’ve put together activities and resources so the playing, learning, creating and singing doesn’t have to stop once Caitie says goodbye. Try these out at home or in your own classroom, and have fun!
In this episode we are exploring colors! This is a wonderful episode to learn and practice color vocabulary, practice identifying colors, as well as exploring what happens when we mix colors together! We go on color hunts in the classroom, on a field trip to the park, and in the discovery bin! We make a beautiful rainbow using only primary colors in a color mixing challenge, and sing one of our favorite songs about colors. Read on for ideas on how to recreate these fun activities from the classroom at home for more color learning and fun!
Confetti Popper
Caitie starts the show with a colorful confetti popper filled with different colors of confetti! This is a fun way to introduce lots of different colors at once, and then explore them in a way different ways. The confetti popper is super easy and fun to make. Here are detailed instructions.
- Once you pop your confetti popper, point out all the different colors to your little one and ask them to name them.
- Ask your little one to point to the different colors. Where is orange? Etc.
- See how many different colors your little one can find by counting the different colors.
- You can even see if you little one is interested in sorting the confetti into the different colors.
- If your little one does sort the colors, try putting just one color into the confetti popper for a big pop of blue or red!
- You can also make confetti that is just one color and put it in the popper, but don’t tell your little one what color it is. Then have them pop it, and discover what color is inside!
- You can even write letters or numbers on each piece of confetti for some letter and number practice! Try putting the first letter of the color on the piece of confetti. For example, if the piece of confetti is blue, write the color b for blue!
There are so many ways to practice colors, numbers, letters, and not to mention fine motor skills with these incredibly fun confetti poppers!
Color Hunt
In this episode we do one of Caitie’s favorite activities: color hunting! You can color hunt absolutely anywhere! With the confetti popper, like Caitie does at the beginning of the episode, or around the room like we did in the classroom, or at the park during our field trip! Here are a few more ideas on how to do a color hunt at home or in your own classroom.
- To make a color hunt really fun, try making your own binoculars to search for colors. You can make some by gluing two short cardboard tubes together with a bead or pom pom in the middle, and attaching some string so the tubes stay around your neck. When you hunt for colors, look through the binoculars! Or you can use your hands to make binoculars, like Caitie does in the classroom.
- Look around the room you are in! Ask your little one to hunt for colors and see what they can find.
- Look for specific colors, like eye spy. Ask your little one if they can find something orange, then have them hunt for it.
- Use color flashcards, like these from Super Simple (color flashcards #1, color flashcards #2), and hide them around the room for your little one to find.
- Try putting different pieces of colored construction paper on the ground to place your different colored treasures on. This is also a great sorting activity. More details on this activity.
- Watch the music video for I See Something Blue and I See Something Pink and find the colors along with the song.
- Go for color hunts in different places! It is a great activity to practice colors anytime, and to sometimes skillfully distract little ones. The grocery store is a great spot for color hunting! So many different colors to find. Before going into the grocery store, ask your little one to look out for one specific color – how many purple things can you find?
- You can also color hunt outdoors, like we did on our field trip to the park. Try taking photos of the different colors you find, like we did on the field trip. Collect all your photos of different colors and look at them later to review colors.
Red Yellow Green Blue
This is one of our favorite songs about colors! This song focuses on red, yellow, green and blue.
- Ask your little one if they can think of other things that are red, yellow, green and blue. Can you find those colors anywhere in the room? Caitie found those colors in the fish tank!
- Super Simple has lots of other great songs about colors that are great for practicing color recognition and color vocabulary. Select the theme ‘colors’ in the theme drop down menu!
Discovery Bin – Colors
The discovery bin is a great place to find colors! You can make a color discovery bin at home, too!
- Fill a bin with sensory material and place different colored items in the bin for your little one to discover. Then try sorting the items they found on colored pieces of paper. The things you put into the bin can be actual items, like an apple or a toy, or it might be easier to put in a bunch of the same things that come in different colors, like crayons or pom poms.
- In the classroom, we put in toy eggs that are all different colors. Then inside there was a small item of that color. You can do the same thing at home, or don’t put anything in the egg and have your little one find something in the room that matches the color of the egg they found.
- You can also match colored pom poms with the right colored egg, and have your little one place the pom pom of the same color inside the egg they found in the discovery bin.
Rainbow Stamps
Rainbows are super colorful! Try painting a rainbow a few different ways. You can have an example of a rainbow available for your little one to copy, like we did in the classroom. This helps when asking what color comes next to practice color vocabulary. You can use this rainbow printable!
- Make a rainbow using stamps! We used half of the eggs we found in the discovery bin. They made great circle shape stamps.
- You can also use any stamp you like. Sponges make great stamps.
- Try using your fingers with finger paint!
- As your little one paints the rainbow, ask them what color they are using, or what color comes next to practice color recognition. Have them refer to your example if they need to!
Color Mixing
In the classroom, we try painting a rainbow using only primary colors: red, yellow and blue. We mix them to make the other secondary colors: orange, purple and green. You can try this at home too!
- Put out the paint colors red, yellow and blue. Try mixing the colors to make new colors. You can try making a specific color, or just experiment and see what happens when you mix certain colors together.
For more rainbow fun, check out the Treetop Family episode, After The Rain.
Find lots more songs, crafts, activities and worksheets all about colors here!
We hope you have fun singing, playing, learning, and creating! We love to see photos of our friends having fun in the classroom and of their wonderful creations! You can share them with us through social media or by sending us an email to hello@SuperSimpleOnline.com.
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