Color Bin

Objective: Examine color through free exploration and categorization

Basic Materials:

Rainbow rice and toys and/or items around the house that are primary colors. That’s it! The rainbow rice has been dyed naturally using food coloring. A link here on how I made it! Recipes are also very Google-able! I would also note to keep the amount of items minimal so as not to overstimulate your little one. For Yumi, I added items from her room; a rainbow stacker, her rainbow wooden peg dolls, a few clothes pins, and some foam numbers.

Benefits:

A simple, low stress way for your child to gain exposure to the names of colors!

How I Interact:

This very simple bin is low fuss and is meant to serve as an introduction to primary colors through naming and grouping them. You can sort and categorize the colors, putting items together of the same color so that your child can merely observe visually and make the distinction. Grouping yellow things together and pointing to them and stating “yellow, these things are the color yellow!” and so on. Children aren’t typically ready to sort on their own until closer to 2-3 years of age. With that in mind, make sure not to impose any pressure on them sorting the items themselves. If they have shown interest, by all means urge them in a positive lighthearted way to go for it! For this bin, like all the others, to be beneficial it is important that they not feel forced to perform any one task.

A great way to carry this over is by naming the colors of the things they interact with daily (i.e. the toys the play with, or the foods they eat). For example, by stating “The apple you are eating is the color green. Your peas are also the color green!” Drawing greater attention to color in the books you read, "Brown Bear Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? is a good classic and a staple in our home.