Colors and shapes surround us. Our world is intrinsically made up of colors and geometrical shapes. That is is all we see around us, and thus this is why children are taught colors and shapes much before they are taught alphabets and numbers. A tree has a different shape from a building, which is different from a person or a banana. And the cars, flowers, and street signs around us come in many different colors.
Colors and shapes are a vital way we describe and categorize our world. A child can notice the difference between a red flower and a yellow one, a square slice of bread, and a round pancake.
When we teach children about colors and shapes, we are imparting verbal wisdom for them to be able to describe the world around them. As children learn to identify colors and shapes, they can categorize objects around them based on these attributes. The written symbols we use for letters and numbers are just shapes. As children learn shapes like squares and circles, they form the classification and visual discrimination skills to distinguish between 'k' and 'x' or between 'p' and 'g.'
Did you know that the ability to identify between hues of colors is not innate, nor is it universal? Different languages and cultures recognize colors distinctly. It ranges from a color having two shades to 20. Naming color is a cognitively complex task for children. Thus it has to be included in the Education.
Colors can be taught in multiple ways. ROYBI has a well-planned curriculum to teach colors and shapes for children. Other methods include- teaching colors can be done through playful everyday life experiences. Saying things like "throw me the red ball" and "your water is in the green bottle." You can increase their awareness and exposure to colors. Clothing is also a space where you can ask your child to choose between clothes of different colors. As your child starts associating colors with familiar objects, it helps them efficiently scan their environment by filtering out unnecessary information. If they are looking for a banana in a basket of toy fruits, they can find it quickly by ignoring everything that isn't yellow.
Teaching shapes are a little trickier than colors. It takes them until 3 to ultimately get a grasp on colors. And a few months more to master shapes. One can start with common shapes like circles and squares to gradually increase the shapes' complexity. Instead of having them on books or screens, you can teach them organically by pointing at everyday objects of that particular shape.
Learning colors and shapes are the building blocks to learning. As mentioned before, mastering this will help them go easy at the following stepping stones.
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