The importance of colour recognition and learning
Colour is one of the most noticeable attributes of the world around us. For children, understanding colour is an essential building block they will use for learning in all areas of their life.
Just after birth, a baby sees only in black and white, with shades of gray. Early exposure to primary colours with the help of toys and decorations encourages a newborn’s visual growth. As soon as infants begin to see colours – between 2 and 4 months - vibrant reds, yellows, blues become even more stimulating and interesting for them. From this time on, babies become more active in exploring their immediate environment, focusing on favourite toys and exercising fine motor muscles in attempt to pick up and grasp them. At this stage preference should be given to visual materials, toys and books having high contrast prints in bold colours and offering a combination of sensory activities: all the senses tie into each other, so if a baby can touch and feel things, this will aid in visual recognition.
While babies’ colour vision is generally well-developed at 6 months, they can start to differentiate between colours only around 18 months. Within this period, when kids can see the full spectrum of colours, playing colour matching and sorting games contributes positively to learning the difference between multiple colours like blue and purple, orange and yellow. Getting to know colours of everyday life - for example, those of traffic lights, cold and hot water taps, fresh fruit – a child learns to navigate through the world around. Also, kids learn what each colour is called and what it represents. With toys and games, introducing the colour concept, the little ones make colour connections quickly. Furthermore, they learn to identify and name colours, which enhances their language skills.
When it comes to designing kids’ toys, we pay particular attention to colours. Our playmats in bright colours stimulate babies to use all their senses to facilitate communication with the world around. With beautifully crafted wooden cubes and stacking toys kids learn contrasting black and white, red and green as well as multiple colours, and develop their imaginative and logical thinking through games of colour matching, sorting, organizing and grouping. Mastering colours continues with learning colour words at play. Our smart interactive toys help to strengthen understanding of the colour concept and boost language and communication skills development. With music toys toddlers can be taught colours through songs and they will easily memorize them having great fun singing and dancing along to popular melodies.
Colour recognition and learning can be successfully supported by colour-focused games and toys and ensure children’s advancement in many areas of later preschool training.