Coloring activities for 3 year olds

Color Activities For Toddlers - play based color activities

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Are you looking for easy crafts for toddlers? Colors, Colors, Colors! Teaching toddlers about colors is such a fun topic and one that you are really doing everyday. Every time you point out the red car or ask your child to put on their blue jacket they are learning about colors. While you don't really need to 'teach' your toddler colors, it's still a lot of fun to have some color activities for toddlers to enjoy.

As I mentioned above, colors are something that children will learn through everyday activities. When you point out the colors of the traffic lights, you ask them to get their blue cup or you discuss the color of the sky.

While incidental learning of colors is great, it's also a topic that's heaps of fun to explore. This collection of color activities for toddlers is perfect if you're looking for a play based way to teach your toddler about colors.

As with every topic I love to ensure we are reading related books and we have put together some great toddler books about colors. 

There are also some great toys that are perfect for learning about colors and the ones I really love are:

Now to get started with the fun toddler color activities! There are heaps of them to choose from

Color Activities to Teach Toddlers about Colors

Printable Color Matching Cards 

These printable color matching cards are a great resource to print out (and they're free) - there are so many different ways to play with them. Get yours HERE. 

Color Matching with Cotton Tips & Egg Cartons

This is an easy color matching activity using simple items from around the house.  

Color Scavenger Hunt

This is a great easy toddler activity idea - no resources required. Give them a bucket/container/bag and have them hunt for colors around the house. 

Color Matching Lucky Dip 

This activity involves matching the colored pop sticks under the corresponding colored pieces of felt. See the full activity here. 

Color Changing Water Play 

If it's warm weather then this is always a hit - super easy to set up too. See how we set up our color changing water play here. 

Color Matching Pom Poms

Another simple color matching idea using inexpensive and upcycled items. See how to set it up here. 

Flower Color Matching 

A nice spring or summer color matching idea. See the full activity here. 

 Easter Egg Color Sorting 

This is a great way to use those plastic eggs that you always end up with after Easter. 

Fizzing Colors Sensory Bin 

This is one of my favorite activities - so much fun. It's sensory, it's about colors and there's some science in there too! See how to set up your fizzing colors sensory bin here.

Colored Pasta Sensory Bin 

If you've never colored pasta, it's actually easier than you think. The best part is that it lasts such a long time (store it in an air tight container or bag) and you get hours of play out of it. See how to color your own pasta here. 

Block Scooping 

This fun water play idea can easily add some color learning too. By talking about the colors of the blocks, asking them to find the yellow block etc. See the full activity here. 

Rainbow Rice Sensory Bin 

If you've never made rainbow rice why not try now. See how easy it is to make here. 

Do-a-dot rainbow 

We love do-a-dots and this rainbow themed one is perfect for talking about colors. Get your free printable rainbow here. 

Craft Stick Rainbow 

Continue the rainbow theme with this fun rainbow craft idea.  

Colored Shaving Cream Sensory Bin 

A quick and easy sensory bin idea - always made better with the addition of some color! 

Color Matching with Match Sticks

Even more color activity ideas: 

Mess Free Color Mixing - Mama Smiles

Touch and Feel Color Boards - Teach Me Mommy 

Rainbow Painting 

Colorful Fizzing Sidewalk Paint - Apple Green Cottage

Color Sorting Fish Sensory Bin - Teaching 2 and 3 year olds 

I hope you enjoyed these color activities as much as my toddlers did. If you have any photos of your child doing these activities I'd love for you to share them in our Facebook Group or on Instagram (use #MyBoredToddler)

Some more toddler activities that you might enjoy are:

Color Books for Toddlers 

ABC Activities for Toddlers 

Counting Activities for Toddlers

Color Activity for Kids - Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

You are here: Home / Colors / Easy Color Learning Activities for Home

March 15, 2020 by Sheryl Cooper

Inside: These color learning activities are perfect for home, keeping your toddlers and preschoolers busy while building skills!

Teaching colors to young children can be part of their even day life.

Think about all the colors you see while out and about: vehicles, landscape, signs, buildings.

By making your toddler and preschoolers aware of the colors around them, they begin to build color recognition skills.

You can also put together simple color learning activities that can be done inside or out in the backyard.

Activities that are hands-on, exposing children to a variety of colors.

Today I’m sharing 25+ fun activities you can choose from.

Some involve materials you probably already have on hand, in fact!

Bonus: Make sure to scroll down and grab your free activity list and color printables!

Note: This is Post #2 in a series of At-Home activities for parents and caregivers.

Make sure to also see our other posts in this At-Home series:

• 55+ Fine Motor Activities for Home
• 15+ Shapes Activities for Home Learning
• 20+ Toddler Activities for Home

Mix yellow and blue in a baggie.

Squirt paint into shaving cream and drive cars through it.

Make your own color matching activity using popsicle sticks. (Natural Beach Living)

Use your Mega Bloks for a fun color sorting activity along with pom poms. (Happy Toddler Playtime)

Trace around your child’s wooden blocks to make a color puzzle. (Toddler at Play)

Create color sorting bags using paper lunch bags. (The Stay-at-Home Mom Survival Guide)

Make a train out of colored paper and place matching colored objects in each car. (Fun Learning for Kids)

Fill colored containers with things around the house that are the same color. (My Bored Toddler)

Get your Legos out of the toy room and work on color recognition. (Lorena & Lennox)

Match colored foam blocks with colored cups. (Mama Smiles)

Stick colored pieces on the wall for some fun color recognition and fine motor. (Happy Toddler Playtime)

Draw colored circles on paper and press matching colored stickers on top. (School Time Snippets)

Little Blue and Little Yellow:

Make a color wheel! (Rainy Day Mum)

Llama Llama Red Pajama:

Play a Matching Pajama Domino Game – free printable! (Rainy Day Mum)

Mouse Paint:

Explore primary and secondary colors with activities related to this favorite book. (The Preschool Toolbox)

Use a paper plate to make a rainbow.

Gather small yellow pieces to glue onto a sun – free printable!

Press colored dot stickers on hand-drawn matching colored shapes. (Busy Toddler)

Grab a bag of Skittles and make a rainbow. (Hands-On Teaching Ideas)

Gather paper plates and food coloring for a fun walking water experiment. (Messy Little Monster)

Download the free printable and learn about colorful flowers and butterflies. (The Wise Owl Factory)

Check out these 3 simple color science experiments that you can do in your kitchen. (Team Cartwright)

We love using playdough at home, and this recipe includes all the colors of the rainbow. (Messy Little Monster)

Or, how about making rainbow slime? This looks so pretty! (The Best Ideas for Kids)

This is a great activity if you have a box of crayons. Add paper and other materials to a tub and let them explore. (Toots Mom is Tired)

Being indoors with wiggly children can be a challenge unless you keep them moving. Try these color gross motor activities! (Still Playing School)

Invite your children to help you prepare fruit for a colorful fruit salad.

Preschool Color Activity Plans

I am so excited to be a co-author of these color theme activity plans.

24 preschool learning activities for your colors theme, including literacy, math, science, art, fine motor, and more! A great resource for teachers and homeschoolers.

CLICK HERE for more information!

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Filed Under: Colors, Home Activities, preschool, Printables, Toddlers Tagged With: colors, preschool, printable, toddlers

About Sheryl Cooper

Sheryl Cooper is the founder of Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds, a website full of activities for toddlers and preschoolers. She has been teaching this age group for over 20 years and loves to share her passion with teachers, parents, grandparents, and anyone with young children in their lives.

Reader Interactions

Coloring pages for children 3-4 years old. Coloring pages for kids to print.

Coloring pictures for children 3-4 years old is a very useful activity. It helps the kid to expand his knowledge about the world around him, to get acquainted with color and form, with the peculiarities of working with pencils and paints. And also develop fine motor skills, make the hand more flexible. Here you can download free coloring pages for children 3 or 4 years old, which will teach your child to reduce the arm swing when drawing. After all, when kids start drawing, they don’t really track the borders of the drawing and even the sheet! By coloring a drawing, the child learns to select colors and shades, images of the drawn characters and objects are stored in his memory. Coloring pictures soothes and relaxes.

You can start coloring pictures from a year and a half. For such kids, there are special coloring pages where you need to draw not with brushes and pencils, but with your own hands. Such paints are called finger paints. In such colorings, the drawings should be extremely simple, understandable and should not contain a lot of small details: a ball, a rattle, a spinning top, an apple. Drawings should have a wide outline - about 1 centimeter. For such a contour it will be difficult to get out the uncertain hand of the baby. The outlines of the pictures should be smooth, without corners and complex bends.

At the age of 3-4, children have already mastered the skill of the brush, they usually like to draw with paints. The kid is already old enough to teach him how to hold pencils or brushes correctly. So be sure to keep an eye on it. This may cause a protest in the child, but still return the pencil to the correct position in his hand.

From the age of four comes the time of active preparation for school. Therefore, the pictures must be selected appropriate. They should be more complex in pattern and texture. You can use developing coloring pages, for example, those where you need to connect the contour at points, indicated by numbers. Such tasks develop perseverance and attentiveness in a child, help teach children to count. There are labyrinth coloring pages that develop logical thinking, and coloring pages with texts will push you to learn to read. Learning in the game is much more successful and interesting. By connecting lines by numbers, the child remembers the order of numbers, their writing is easy and fast. This is much more interesting than just memorizing numbers and letters.

You can ask your child to create a plot for a drawing based on a colored drawing. When mixing paints, new colors are obtained - this process always captivates the child and is very informative and useful! The child will surely like it if you arrange a small vernissage of his work, show his coloring books to family and friends. This will help him be more confident in his activities.

Summing up, when choosing coloring pages for the youngest artists, you must adhere to the following rules:

• Choose large images that aren't very detailed and don't have tiny elements.
• Characters for coloring are kind, interesting and familiar to the child: heroes of fairy tales, cartoons, toys, cars, etc.
• Choose coloring pages with a wide outline. So it will be easier for the baby to see the edge and stay within the boundaries of the picture.
• The outlines of the coloring books should be more rounded and smooth, without complex elements and lines.

Good luck in your work and success!

Coloring for 3-4 years on topics:

• ♦ Life and family
• ♦ For girls
• ♦ For kids
• ♦ For boys
• ♦ Toys
• ♦ Machine
• ♦ World Animals
• ♦ The world of plants
• ♦ Cartoons
• ♦ Teachers
• ♦ Holidays
• ♦ Disney princess
• ♦ Cosmos
• ♦ Tales
• ♦ Superheroes

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Online coloring for children | Kids Online

If you don’t want to clean up an overturned jar of water, splashed paints after your child, constantly undermine colored pencils that simply “burn” in your baby’s hands, but at the same time you don’t intend to deprive him of the pleasure of decorating favorite cartoon characters , then you, here. We tried to create and place the most interesting children's online coloring pages. Give your child the opportunity to show their creativity by playing coloring - online. Coloring pages for girls and boys of different ages and on different topics: from simple simple objects and animals known from the first year of life to complex, multi-colored coloring pages with popular cartoon characters. As far as possible, we fill our children's site with new coloring pages online, so stay with us and you will find a lot of interesting and new things.

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