Leah, from Fulham, sent in this great idea. Let’s take a look…
What did you do?
This simple but effective activity can be put together in five minutes. I used different coloured card and picked a selection of toys and objects from around the house and placed them in a basket next to the colours.
Ask the child/children to match the colours of the objects to the correct coloured mat.
At the end of the activity I asked the child to look for a “green object etc ” himself and bring it to the mat, to further show his understanding and recognition of colours.
To extend their learning add a few objects into the basket which can not be categorised on to a coloured mat. You can also build their language skills by asking them the name of the objects and the colour, for example, blue block, green care, yellow ball.
This matching activity worked really well. It can be simplified to learn only two colours at a time or have more colours to be more challenging. I was able to notice that depending on the shade of the orange and red objects sometimes they were placed incorrectly, so I will focus on learning these two colours next.
Tell the Housebound With Kids community a bit about yourself…
My name is Leah and I live in London. I am currently a nanny to three boys, B1, B3 and B6. I am always thinking of new activities to appeal to each age group. I have a nanny blog on Instagram where I share activities, craft ideas and baking recipes if you would like to follow, smiles_and_giggles_
Do you have any tips for other parents?
It’s okay for children to get bored! I have periods where B6 is always bored and doesn’t know what to play with or do.
This is okay, being bored allows children to come up with their own self led activities. It helps them become confident as they will try new things, encourages imagination and creativity as they find a way to amuse themselves and helps develop interpersonal skills as the children play with others during unstructured play.
