Color Hunt!

Today I pulled out some 9 inch by 12 inch color flash cards that I made a million years ago (okay, probably in 1993) to try out a color hunt with my kids. Justin knows all of his colors and Ryan, though he is a bit young, likes to do whatever his brother does.

I held up a card and had Justin identify the color and then look around the playroom for something that was that same color.  He was clueless!  He wandered around aimlessly and I wondered if he might be looking for an identical flashcard or something.  So I modeled it for him and had him try again.  He did much better once he got the idea.  Ryan didn't know what was going on, but he loved having his brother find an object that he could bring to me.  I would thank him for the item, using the name of the object he brought and pointing out the color.

For the second round, I had Justin hold up the cards and I would look for objects that were the same color.  He loved being in charge of the cards and watching me run around the room.

We are ready for variations.  I am going to print out the color words so Justin can get some practice reading them.  I will let him match the card to the color flashcards we were already using.  This way he can self-check.  Ryan can carry around the color flashcard while Justin helps to find objects that are the right color.

I think I will have a speed contest.  I will see how many objects of a certain color Justin can find within a set time period.  We can keep track and then see what color is "the winner."  Justin is really into contests and comparing, so he will be excited to see which color wins.

Once Justin has found lots of different things (instead of always choosing the same couple of objects for each color) I might give him additional requirements such as it has to have red but NO blue.  It has to have green and be bigger than your hand.

Sometimes I spread the cards out on the floor and give Justin a group of objects to sort by color.  He really enjoys this too.  Ryan's main goal is to play with the objects and move them from where his brother put them.  When Ryan gets a bit older and he can do the sorting, I will have him sort by color while Justin uses tally marks to count how many objects of each color.  I will have him use the data he collects to complete a graph.

Perhaps after that I will toss the cards.  If I ever teach again  and need something like that, I bet I could make them.