Happy Valentines Day everyone! I hope that your day is as colorful as my post today.
For the month of February, my entry for the 12 Months More of Montessori Learning is all about how we learn and explore colors at home. If you are looking for more ideas on how to extend your color activities at home, then this is definitely for you! At 39 months, Vito is knowledgeable of all basic colors and I just have to nurture this knowledge through planned and spontaneous activities.
LEARN COLORS THROUGH NATURE FINDS
Last year, Vito and I started bringing home “
nature finds”. This was the time when he turned 3 years old and stopped mouthing objects. We would bring simple things
like sticks, pinecones, flowers or rocks, then placed them in a basket for more exploration. We discussed the objects’ texture, shape, weight (heavy or light), size (big or small) and of course the color/s. To simply demonstrate how to extend the “nature table” activity by focusing on colors, Vito and I collected and glued some flowers, leaves and sticks on a white cardstock and then matched them to their nearest colors in the
Montessori Color Tablets (3rd Box) 
.
Because they are placed in a white background, Vito can easily identify the color tablets closest to the petals, leaves and sticks. This is a simple activity that’s so easy to replicate. You can work on rocks, different hues of leafy greens, flowers and more.
COLOR GRADING
We are now using
Montessori Color Tablets (3rd Box) for this activity. This is a sensorial material for visual discrimination and perfection of colors. I was a little bit hesitant to purchase it at first so we used a DIY. If you skim through my blog,
you might have read about our previous color grading activity using water and food coloring.
![DSC_4354_thumb[6]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-j4eSEHKI4J7JSEYigtI9Hi0t-R5ffiI-SSwdQQUjCIKM9AHFT147V4pb0RlGjAwA14SBtniaGEUVi0kJjjoCE3RTYq3zJw8RIOqs7Oli_eF3MkhzeM3WmGTkqjmp8_TsV3MspTsGVwvZ/?imgmax=800 "DSC_4354_thumb[6]")
I will talk about the
Montessori Color Tablets (3rd Box) in a separate post but for now, here’s Vito trying out the yellow color (we worked on it one color at a time). We talked about the dark and light yellow… and on how it gets lighter or darker.
COUNTERS
I love
Learning Resources’ counters and we use them a lot at home. We extended its use not just for counting but for color sorting and fine motor skills activities too! What you see here are the
Mini Motors 
and the
Backyard Bugs
counters. Vito arranged the counters on their corresponding cut-out colored strips.
IN FOODS
We worked on
fruits and vegetables last year too and sorted out their colors. Vito loves our play pretend
Farmers Market Color Sorting Set
and he would often sort them according to colors. But you don’t need to use
this, you can use whatever you have in your kitchen. By the way, in this activity we are using the
Montessori Color Tablets (2nd Box)
.
RAINBOW COLORS
Nothing beats learning colors through the rainbow! We love our Large
Grimm's Rainbow Stacker
to pieces and the boys are using this in so many ways other than stacking it and learning colors! I love that it provides different hues of red, green and blue. Because Vito is constantly exposed to this toy, he’s able to identify the dark and light green, red and blue. Mavi even made a
LEGO Bricks
version of this rainbow!
ARTS
Of course, there’s the
paints
,
watercolor
s and
markers
! Explore colors using these inexpensive art materials. We are not yet talking about primary and secondary colors, but occasionally I would show Vito that we can combine colors to produce another color.
COLORS IN BOOKS
There are so many books on colors but
this book
is our favourite. Vito enjoyed this the most because he loves flipping the transparent pages of the book to see the result when colors combine.
Colours (My First Discoveries) is perfect for toddlers and preschoolers!
COLORS IN SCIENCE
This
was an experiment we did last year and Vito loved it! This is one of the many ways we show our kids how secondary colors are formed. See how Vito studied color mixing through this post "
Color Mixing: Green, Orange and Purple".
EVERYWHERE
Colors are everywhere! Don’t limit yourself to the ones you have at home (objects). Go out and explore the colors in forests, beaches, parks and just about anywhere… and it’s free!
Pin this for later!
This post is part of the 12 Months More of Montessori which is hosted by
Natural Beach Living and
The Natural Homeschool.
Amazing blogs participating in the 12 Months More of Montessori that you should visit:
.
![DSC_4354_thumb[6]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ-5NXDEU9IHIkFZsgM0l0RhqgQdbyePvwp0Rxbu0QUhcn5QOhPNDB6TPxkQJKvrsYsfyH9CkVVmaqgAdohYRhHFfkGXVeNij05dd18vqxXwoA-Zjp8fTqxHennFaq0aPWAtugfrLLlahc/s1600-h/DSC_4354_thumb62.jpg "DSC_4354_thumb[6]")
and the 
counters. Vito arranged the counters on their corresponding cut-out colored strips.
and he would often sort them according to colors. But you don’t need to use 
.
to pieces and the boys are using this in so many ways other than stacking it and learning colors! I love that it provides different hues of red, green and blue. Because Vito is constantly exposed to this toy, he’s able to identify the dark and light green, red and blue. Mavi even made a 
version of this rainbow! 
, 
s and 
! Explore colors using these inexpensive art materials. We are not yet talking about primary and secondary colors, but occasionally I would show Vito that we can combine colors to produce another color.
is our favourite. Vito enjoyed this the most because he loves flipping the transparent pages of the book to see the result when colors combine. 
