Question about teaching colors.....

[asherraifsmom]

Okay, so my son is 26 months old. We've been working on teaching him colors just in every day stuff....when he uses his crayons and markers, asking what color the grass is when we're outside, what color his bike is, etc...

And he seems to be having the HARDEST time.I know he's just barely two, but everything else we've taught him he's picked up like a sponge. He knows all his upper and lower case letters, all his numbers up to twelve, about half his shapes, and has a very extensive vocabulary.

But colors...he's just not getting 'em. Everything is either blue or pink to him. And now my mom has me freaked out because she said he may be color blind. Not that that's the END of the world if he is, and color blindness does run in our family on my mom's side with some of the men,  and I know he's only two....It very well could be that blue and pink are just the first two he learned. It's not that he cant pronounce the other colors, because he'll repeat perfectly after me any color I say. But purple, red, pink, orange are all "pink" to him, and green, brown, black and blue are all "blue" to him. And yellow he just looks at me confused and points and says "this", like he wants me to tell him what it is.

So, two questions:

1) Any ways to help teach a child colors other than just rote memorization and repeating it all the time? We have books that teach colors, I go over it with him when he's drawing (which he loves to do)....

2)At what age should I start to worry or get him checked out if he can't figure out his colors? Like i said, I know he's only two, and I'm not super strict about "he should be at this or that developmental milestone by now" because i know kids develop at different rates, its just odd that he picks up literally EVERYTHING ELSE sooooo fast, and this we've been working on daily for weeks and he's just not getting it...except blue and pink....

[char-n-rys-mom]

are you  teaching him his colors all at once?

Maybe set 1 color each week like one week is yellow, do different activities based on that weeks color, you can find printable color sheets online, find ones that have only yellow objects that he can color with a yellow crayon, then go around the house or outside and find yellow objects.  Make yellow jello, or sugar cookies with yellow frosting or have him pick out only yellow m&m's to eat ect.... do different colors each week and see if he catchs on then If not I would talk to your doc. and see what is the appropriate age that he should know his colors. With  my daughter who is 2 as well we also play in the car a find a color game where I tell her Find something blue.....or find a green car..... she loves playing it we are now moving on to finding shapes.....like find a circle, square ect.

I hope this helps!

[padavali]

Hannah and I had a lot of fun with colors.  We would have color days and stretch out to a couple days if she didn't get that color.  Started with dressing her in that color head to toe if we had that option, we would make necklaces that color and I would wear one as well as she would.  Even cutting out colored papper and putting it on a string.  I would just pick one color a day(s) and just focus on that. pointing that color out wherever I saw it.  I would even color her food or milk that color if it came in food coloring. 

[daisy521]

I remember reading something about what age they can test for color blindness, but for the life of me I can't remember any of the details.

Something we've been doing with ours for teaching colors could sound funny.  They love to help doing stuff around the house, which I'm not going to discourage because I know it won't last forever.  I mean they are boys!  lol    But they are learning how to sort the laundry by color, so they aren't just learning the basic colors, but whether it's a light blue or a dark blue.   They seem to be catching on fairly well, now if they could only load the dishwasher.  lmao

[valerie0103]

My daughter has had alot of trouble with colors also. We just keep doing what your doing and shes starting to get it but we started colors first and she learned all her letters and sounds  but is still trying to get all of the colors down

[MamaBuggy]

Hmm, I think I would mention it to his ped. especially as it runs in the family, and because hes male and its more common in men than women to have color blindedness. They very well may not be able to tell at his age, I have no idea..but the fact that he groups similar colors (like colors with a warm hue vs colors with a cold hue) and calls them 1 thing would be the concern to me. Definitely try teaching them 1 at a time and really focus on that color for a day or two straight to see if he can pick it up, but if you are concerned at all, its better to ask now and relieve your worries.

[asherraifsmom]

thanks everyone for the suggestions....

I will keep working on them with him, assuming he CAN see color until I'm told by a doctor otherwise...

I did some research, and I think the earliest they test for color blindness is three years old......

They use dots and make designs with one color of dots against/in the middle of dots of another color..so if your'e color blind you wont see the shapes, just a bunch of same colored dots...but if you can see color you'll see the shape outlines of a different color from the other dots, if tha tmakes sense...

we'll see in a year I guess for sure, unless he starts showing otherwise that he CAN definitely tell the difference....

This baby is due in a month, and Asher hasnt been to the doctor in quite a while for a well visit so I may schedule a well visit for him when I take the new baby in for the newborn check up, and mention the eye thing then. But for now thanks for the great advice on teaching colors, everyone!

[kriswrite]

A lot of children don't know their colors at age two. Give him at least another year.

I agree about teaching one color at a time.

Kristina

[LoreleiSieja]

Here is a whole week full of activities for teaching him the color "red".  After doing this for a week, you can repeat the activities in another week, but with "blue".  Spending a whole week on one color, can saturate him, really help him to learn to tell the difference.

http://raisingcreativechildren.com/red-week/

Also, even if he does turn out to be color blind, most men are only color blind for certain colors, or certain shades of colors.  It is extremely rare to be totally color blind so that you see the world only in black and white.  "the horse whisperer" is totally colorblind, and reading his autobiography was really interesting.

The main two colors that boys and men (colorblindness is many times more common among men than women) is red/green.  Certain shades of red and certain shades of green look like the same color.  Weird, isn't it, that we use red and green for stoplights?  Young colorblind men memorize that red is on top, and green is below, but then sometimes the lights are horizontal, too.  Another example of how brilliant our government can be sometimes, right?

Next, is brown/purple.  Those two colors can be often confused.

Let me share a funny story with you -

My husband had a new job, and wanted to buy a suit.  He had the money, and a men's clothing store in the small town where we lived was having a sale.  But I wasn't feeling well.  I don't remember if it was a flu, or a pregnancy, but I sent him to the store to buy it on his own.  He worried, because he is color blind.  I told him that he looked really great in brown, to ask the clerk to help him find a brown suit.

Well, he called me on the phone to say that he had a chocolate brown pin stripe suit, that was really super, and the clerk told him it was chocolate brown, and it was an off size, but it fit perfectly.  I told him to buy it and bring it home to show me.

He did. 

He was right.  It did fit perfectly.  But it was slate gray!

So who was color blind? My husband or the clerk?

We kept the suit.  And I stopped sharing this story in person, because it embarrassed my DH.  (But he's not in this group!)

So, have fun teachign him his colors, and just wait and see what happens.  As for testing for color blindness, when he's a little older, they have colored pictures made up of spots, like a mosaic. If the child can see colors, he can see a shape in the picture. If he can't see colors, it will look solid - no shape inside.

Lorelei

[grass_tiger]

I thought my dauther when she was two by only showing her one color at a time. The first one took a couple weeks of running around pointing anything that color (and not too far off the shade of that color), then about two weeks for the second. The third took perhaps a week. Then it was like a lightbulb went on and she understood. The other colors took only a few minutes each (on separate days).

Also, if you want a short cut.... I LOVE the preschool prep videos, in two weeks of 1/2 hour a day a child can learn shapes, colors, sight words, etc. Very nice. My daughter is turning four and still loves watching them once in a while. 

Learning colors is very confusing to a child because something's color isn't always the same. If it is dark in the room the colors are more grey and we call various shades the same color (cyan, aqua, light blue, turquoise, and navy are all blue). It can take a while for a child to figure out all the nuances. Just be patient. A child doesn't need to know their colors till they are five or so.

[asherraifsmom]

I just wanted to update everyone....for several weeks I couldn't get Asher to remember a single color, then one day this week it was like a lightbulb went off...without me asking, he started pulling out crayons and correctly calling them "red" "green" "pink" "Blue"...he doesnt know yellow, purple, black, and he usually calls orange "red" but at least those 4 colors he does know are different enough across the color spectrum that I'm not worried anymore....

Grr...I wouldn't have been worried anyway if my mom hadn't said anything *sigh*