This year I have started a preschool homeschool program with Piper. This involves spending roughly an hour in the morning reading books that are part of the Sonlight P3/4 curriculum and learning things like numbers, alphabet, shapes, colors, catechism and memory Bible verses. Throughout the day we also do other activities together related to what we read that morning whether it be a craft, cooking, an activity or an outting. So far its been a load of fun and so exciting to watch my little girl learn! Initially, I had planned to not concentrate on such things as alphabet and numbers. I felt we had lots of time to get into that and don't really feel pressure for her to be able to speel off such things. More then anything I want her to be a kid and discover the world around her and play and try new things. BUT little Miss Independant started picking up on letters and wanted to know more. She will sit and draw the letter 'P' until the whole page is filled! After a while I realized this was an interest of hers and, well, that's part of the reason I'm homeschooling - so we can follow her interests and build on them at her pace. I found a site with free curriculum on it - Brightly Beaming - which goes through all such topics a week at a time. We've been following this for a few weeks now and its been wonderful .... except for this frustrating thing about colors!
I guess I had realized before now that Piper had trouble identifying her colors but it became that much clearer as we went through the curriculum. I don't move on to a new letter, number, shape or color until I'm sure she knows the ones before it. And despite advancing in everything else the colors catergory is at a standstill. We are still at green. Green, green, GREEN! After a couple of weeks of daily asking her what color this is and getting every answer except green, I was a bit concerned! How can she remember everything else and not one simple color?? Is she color blind? Or does this point to some other problem? She can match colors well so I didn't think color blindness was a possibility. But I started looking for some answers.
Thankfully, I came across this article:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-johnny-name-colors
What a relief! The issue is mostly a language one. Needless to say we now are careful to say "Your dress is yellow" rather then "You're wearing a yellow dress"! And I am not quite so worried anymore. Not just because of the article but also because of a color game Piper and I made up together. It is very simple yet efficient. She loves playing it so we play often and slowly but surely she is learning her colors.
Oh, and pink is her favorite! ;)
Our color game:
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First, you pick a square form the bucket. (No peeking!) |
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| What color is it? |
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| If you don't know what color he is, square is sad because... |
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| He can't go home :( |
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| But if you know that the square is red then... |
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| He is HAPPY because he gets to go home! |
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