Introducing Colors and Shapes the Right Way

 In this episode, Heidi shares practical tips on teaching colors and shapes through fun, play-based activities that build your child’s vocabulary, creativity, and early math skills. Using everyday conversations, Bible stories, books, and play, she helps parents and teachers introduce colors and shapes in a natural, engaging way. Whether you're just starting or looking for fresh ideas, this podcast will inspire you to teach these foundational concepts with confidence and joy. 

Helpful Links from this Episode:

• How to Teach Kids 
• Creation Activities for Kids
• Joseph's Colorful Coat Activities for Kids
• The Rainbow in Noah's Ark
• Color-based Books
• Shape Books
• Maximum Learning While Reading

Episode Sponsor:  ABCJesusLovesMe.com, an educational ministry that equips adults with the materials needed to be intentional in educating children.

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Thanks for listening!

Chapters

• 0:14 Why Colors and Shapes Matter
• 3:24 When to Introduce Basic Concepts
• 4:57 Three-Step Teaching Method Explained
• 9:34 Play-Based Learning Ideas
• 13:20 Learning Takes Time, Not Speed
• 16:22 Closing Prayer and Resources

Transcript

Melanie Co-host 00:00

On today's podcast, I get to pick Heidi's brain about why teaching colors and shapes is important, how we do it, and include some great play-based learning ideas. So, join us for this interview-style conversation that I get to have with my friend Heidi. 

Heidi Host 00:19

Welcome back to Parenting, to Impress your go-to podcast, to learn practical ways to love God and love others, and love others and impress this on the hearts of your children. I am your host, Heidi Franz, and I am joined by my dear friend, Melanie Simpson. Two moms who have made a lot of mistakes but have found grace and truth along the way. 

Melanie Co-host 00:40

So, Heidi, I love to do these kinds of podcasts because I fancy myself as a TV host.  {laughter}  But other than that, it's also just a great way to have you share the wisdom and knowledge that you have in a specific area.  For today, we're talking about teaching colors and shapes. My first question is why do we teach colors and shapes? 

Heidi Host 01:07

I love teaching colors and shapes. It's the first learning that preschoolers get to do, and they love colors and shapes. And there are also so many resources to teach this, so many ideas. 

It's easy to fall in love with colors and shapes, but there are specific reasons to teach these. For one, colors and shapes help build the child's vocabulary because they are able to talk using more adjectives. Instead of just saying I want that ball, they can say I want that blue ball. Instead of saying I want that toy, they can describe that toy looks like a square. It builds their vocabulary and their ability to describe things. Another thing it helps with creativity.  Because shapes are what you use to draw, their observation skills increase. 

And then, shapes help with math. I mean, that's your basic form of geometry. Shapes help with letter and number recognition. For example, if a child can't tell the difference between a triangle and a circle, they can't tell the difference between a capital letter A and a capital letter O, because all numbers and letters are made up of shapes. Another one is spatial awareness: being able to tell how things fit together. One more is sorting.  For kids to be able to sort between items based upon their color, based upon their shape, based upon both. Basic math, creativity, vocabulary, pre-reading are just a few of the reasons why we talk about shapes and colors. 

Melanie Co-host 03:03

I love that, Heidi, because it helps us, as parents and teachers, understanding the why, then can propel us to teach well, right? When we know that this is really important, it's going to factor in so many different areas of learning. We will take the time to teach it appropriately. When do we start introducing colors and shapes? 

Heidi Host 03:25

Colors are learned by children sooner than shapes are. A lot of kids start knowing their colors when they're two, where shapes are more identified at age three. Shapes are harder than colors. Colors are something that I started almost from the beginning. As the baby held a rattle, I would say, “The rattle is blue.” We talk about colors as we read books. We would talk about colors as we put on their clothes. “So today you're going to wear a red dress, today you're going to wear a red shirt, etc.”  Colors are something I would start talking about from the beginning. Teaching shapes at about one year.  Also, always start with the most basic. So colors are red, the blue, the yellow.  Shapes are circle, square, triangle, rectangle. 

Melanie Co-host 04:20

A lot of times at your conferences, the teachers in the infant rooms are struggling with this feeling that the information shared doesn’t pertain to me.  But what I hear you saying is that when done in an age-appropriate and play-based way, infant teachers and parents can begin teaching now. 

How do we start? I mean, you mentioned age-appropriate for development, but how do we even begin? 

Heidi Host 04:57

I think it starts with conversations. That is the best way to begin teaching colors and shapes as that child is playing, as that child's getting dressed, when you're in the grocery store, or when you are taking a walk.  If you're a teacher, as the child is in centers, you're talking about the ball that is blue. 

There is a difference between the ball is blue, this is a blue ball. When I say the ball is blue, I'm focusing on the blue. When I say the blue ball, I'm focusing on the ball. So I would encourage you to use both ways of saying it,  Put the adjective before the noun and when you put the adjective after the noun, as it gives a different focus. 

Melanie Co-host 05:50

Then when we move from having those conversations to actual teaching time, what does that look like? 

Heidi Host 05:57

So one of the biggest things that I see parents and teachers struggle with is getting the order of learning out of order. So let me explain. In teaching a concept, you first introduce the learning, you introduce that objective. So, let's say your objective is the color blue. You talk about the ball is blue. You talk about how blueberries are blue. You're talking about how your shirt is blue. 

Melanie Co-host 06:31

You're inundating that child's world with the color blue, so this would be a great place for having a center that was just blue items.   

Heidi Host 06:40

Absolutely. They play with blue, they only use a blue crayon, they only use blue paint, they wear blue clothes - just inundating their world with that color. That's the introduction part. 

The second step in teaching is practicing that learning. So, in high school and college that's the labs where you are doing the learning.  The child is looking at a book with you and you say, “Point to a blue ball.”  You say, “Point to a blue truck, point to something that's blue.” They're practicing learning by finding items. Notice, I have not asked, “What is this color or what is this shape?” That's the highest level of learning which is “identifying.” 

We introduce the learning.  We practice with the learning which means we play with that learning and point out that learning. And then step number three is identifying where the child says that color is blue. That is a triangle. 

What I see most parents and teachers do is that they move right from the introduction to the identify. “This is blue; what is this?” Let's say you have three blocks in front of you and you pick up a blue block and you ask the child, “What is this?” If the child is not ready for that identification learning, they start guessing, “Red, blue, yellow, green.” And when they finally say the right one, we get excited, “Yay, you did it!” When really the child just guessed. So, if the child is not ready to say what it is, move back to inundating their world with that objective. And if the child still is struggling to point to an item that is blue, then just talk about it. Don't ask them to point. Definitely don't ask them to name.  Does that make sense?

Melanie Co-host 08:48

Yeah, we want them to be successful. We don't want to set them up to fail.  

Heidi Host 09:00

We're teaching them to guess which makes confusion in the brain because they don't understand why that answer was right. When we're to the identification point, we want them to know exactly what that is.  You can stay on the introduce and practice stages for a very long time, and other times it's a short process. 

Melanie Co-host 09:21

So, Heidi, I know your website has a lot of ideas, but would you just share a few of the play-based learning ideas that can help us teach our kiddos about colors and shapes? 

Heidi Host 09:34

I love that, as we always do in this podcast, we're going to go back to the Bible. There are Bible stories that we can use as a foundation to teach colors.

·         Creation - God made a beautiful, colorful world. Go to an aquarium and see all the amazingly colored fish that God created. God is a creative God and he loves colors. 

·         Talk about the colors on Joseph's colorful coat

·         Noah's ark and the rainbow

Those are just three stories that we can use from the Bible to talk about colors. 

Beyond that, there are a plethora of color-based books.

·         The Day the Crayons Quit

·         Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes

·         Mix it Up

·         Put Me in the Zoo

·         Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? 

And there are so many more color-teaching books available on the website. 

There aren't as many shape books, but there are a few. 

·         All Shapes Matter

·         Mouse Shapes

·         The Book of Shapes 

I encourage you to check out ABCJesusLovesMe.com. I will put in the show notes direct links for you to be able to read these books. 

Then, as you're reading…slow down. We just did a podcast on how to read to your child or your student for maximum learning. I encourage you to listen to that podcast. A wealth of ideas for you to pull out more learning than just the text.  Did your family have a favorite color book or a shape book, Mel? 

Melanie Co-host 11:09

What we would do is use whatever picture books we had to focus on the color we were targeting. We just hit on that color over and over and over again. 

Heidi Host 11:18

That is a great way to do it, because books have so much learning beyond just the text. You can pull out just one color. You can read the exact same book and pull out another color. 

Another idea are songs. There are a plethora of songs for the various colors and shapes. ABCJesusLovesMe.com has several to choose from. I encourage you to check those out. 

And then just basic activities like pick up a box, label it the “Red Box.”  Walk through your house or classroom and find red items to put in that box.  Then let the kiddos play with those red items. At the end of the week, put all the red items away. We call that a color walk. You can do the exact same thing with a shape. 

Take a flashlight and point at everything that has a rectangle shape and trace that rectangle shape with your flash card. There are games to play Uno, Candyland to help those kiddos learn in a way that they don't even realize they're learning…because that's a goal with preschoolers.  We want them to learn and not realize they're learning. 

Here's another one. Provide the child with the same object but in a different color or shape. For example, have a red apple and a green apple. Talk about how they're the same. They are both apples, but the color is different. Have crackers where one is a rectangle, one is a triangle.  Talk about how they're both crackers. They're both yummy, but they're different shapes. The list goes on and on. Again, check out the website and you will find many other options. 

Melanie Co-host 13:06

Heidi, thank you so much for this conversation because I think we tend to overcomplicate things.  At least I know I do.  We tend to, as you said, rush through things. This conversation has been such a good reminder that, while we may be able to zip through some things, our kids need time to learn. They learn through repetition, and they need a slow pace. You talk about that when you sing songs and when you read slow down, and it's the same way with the learning pace. 

Heidi Host 13:40

I think about my son, who is an engineering major right now in college.  He said to me a couple of weeks ago, “Mom, this concept hasn't clicked yet, but it will. I’ve just got to keep working on it.” And he's talking about advanced calculus and advanced physics.  While I could never grasp the concepts, he can and he's having to give it time to click. But yet, because colors and shapes are so easy for us as adults, we think they should be something are quickly learned by children. But we need to think like we are teaching them Calc BC or physics and give them time to just keep playing with it, just keep manipulating it, just keep processing it, just keep reading it until one day it's going to click and they're going to have it. 

Melanie Co-host 14:42

I can remember very clearly one of my children coming to me and saying, “I want to wear my red shirt.”  That was the first time that he had identified that color appropriately. Sometimes it's just organic and it just happens. But particularly for our teachers, knowing that there is a structured way that we can use this tool of three steps is so helpful. 

Heidi, thank you for this conversation.  I love these interviews because they are a way to communicate information to our listeners so that they have a new set of tools in their toolbox for teaching their children. And thank you for the ABCJesusLovesMe.com website because, man, that is a labor of love and it is chock full of ideas. Just encourage the listeners to head over and do a deep dive. 

I'd like to pray for our folks just as they get to take on this new task. 

Father God, we thank you for the beautiful world that you created. We thank you for the colors that surround us and the shapes that pop up in nature, and so, God, we also just ask for your help as we endeavor to teach children how to identify the things that you have made, the colors, the way you have created our world. Would you remind us that we don't have to do this from scratch, that there are time-tested ideas at their disposal. This is not something that is difficult, but it can be a joy. It can be a fun thing to help our kids learn about colors and shapes. Thank you, Lord, thank you for Heidi and thank you for our time. Amen.   

Announcer

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