Practicing Color Names

I was surprised to find a month or so ago that Chiquita already knows most of her colors in English and a lot in Spanish as well!  But, she was still shaky on a few (green is one she just can't seem to nail) and honestly one day she knows them every time and another time she doesn't remember any of them (maybe tied to how interested she is in naming things for Mommy).

I know there's a million opportunities to practice colors, but here's some of the ways we've been doing it:

• Colored snacks!  When eating fruit ring cereal I ask her to tell me the name of each color in English and Spanish.  I can usually get through each color a couple times before she's done.

• Books about color.  My mom gave Chiquita this Halloween book "Trick" about a cat that likes to dress up in different colored hats when she was 1 yr old.  It has a picture of the cat with the hat and the opposite page is just the solid color with the name of the color in English.  We practice the colors in English and Spanish and talk about what the cat is dressed up as. 

• Bathtime Colors!  We tried the for the first time today.  I gave her a choice of red, blue or green food coloring.  She had to name the color in at least one language and then I would add a drop of it to her bath. It looked really cool (I couldn't get a good photo with only one hand, so trust me) so she was willing to review color names a few times in order to change her water's color!  We didn't really add enough that her whole bath turned a different color, it just looked a little blue in the end.

• Block color sorting.  We actually did this a long time ago, but it's still a fun activity.  I actually can't believe I haven't blogged about this before!  I just took three size 10 cans (coffee can size) and covered them in colored duct tape.  I could only get my hands on three so that's why three.  Then I wrote the color names in Spanish, azul, amarillo and rojo.  Chiquita has Legos in four colors so we just filled the buckets with these three.  When I get my hands on another can I will add verde!  We've used this as an opening activity in Spanish for Preschoolers quite a few times, both building and sorting the colors.

• Coloring, obviously.  Just naming colors as they are coloring is a great way to learn.  We did a pre-writing activity with four colored markers and it was not only a good way to practicing naming colors but helped Chiquita repeat the activity a few times.

I know there's tons of unstructured ways to learn and reinforce colors, just pointing out colors in every day life, and we're doing that too.  What have you done to teach your little one colors?