The other day a friend instagrammed a picture of her and her son coloring as she drank her cup of coffee. It made me think of my mother-in-law because she is so great about sitting down and participating with my kids as they color or as they play with play dough and many other simple tasks that she makes the most of.
You can purpose tons of learning sitting down with a coloring book…. one page at a time.
You are teaching color recognition, but you are also helping to build your little one’s vocabulary by discussing the pictures. And activity books have lots of little problem solving opportunities to teach with mazes and categorizing (which one does not belong?
Here is one great activity book that teaches the ABC’s and some other problem solving strategies as well…
There are MILLIONS of books like this but I want to share this one to share a FEW quick IDEAS that can apply to most activity books…
1) Trace over black with white ….
2) Color inside of bubble letters (not just on pages like this one that are made for them)… I ask “What letter do you want mommy to color?” Then I talk through the formation of the letter “climb down the ladder, frog jump up to the monkey bars, hop across, climb up and down on the other side to make an H” or whatever silly way you want to say it. Then I say…. “Your turn… what letter do you want to color?”
3) For little writers you could draw speech bubbles on your color pages and make your characters talk to each other.
4) Count how many times you see the same object on a page (like the balloons in the next picture)…
Share your favorite coloring or activity books in a comment below and share any tips that you may have for us.
Here or on Facebook
