Lesson Plan Ideas – Colors

Here are some lesson plan ideas for your Color’s theme. Do you have an idea you’d like to add? Type it in the comments section below or email it to amy@planningplaytime.com, Subject Line: Colors.

Circle Time

• Have colored days-students wear a certain color each day, wrap up with a rainbow day and create a class rainbow 🙂
• Play Color “I Spy”
• Stand up and sit down by colors they are wearing. (if you are wearing red stand up, if you are wearing blue stand up) This could be even more fun if you let the kids roll a color dice to see who has to stand up and sit down.

• I See Colors: Clap hands and slap knees while saying the words.

I see. I see. I see something green?

Do you see something green?

Tell me what you see.

(Call a child’s name and have them tell you something green. Repeat for the other colors.)

Literacy Centers

• Color Mats: Sort magnet letters by color
• Rainbow Write: letters, names, sight words, numbers
• Many more ideas in our Preschool Colors Theme Unit

More Centers

• Fine Motor: You will need Styrofoam pieces and plastic crazy straws in colors. Place crazy straws in the Styrofoam. Use larger beads (pony beads are too small) to go over the crazy straws. This is great fine motor & sorting practice. Hobby Lobby or any craft store will have the larger beads. You could also use pipe cleaners in playdough and the small pony beads for sorting.
• Color Hunt: Walk around the room. Pretend to be adventurers. Use your hands to make binoculars. Search for items in each color.
• Take an egg carton. Cut it in half and turn it upside down. Poke holes in the top of each bump. Color a circle around the hole. Cut lengths of pipe cleaners. Sort and push them through the holes with matching colors.
• Many more ideas in our Preschool Colors Theme Unit

Science Center

• Color Paddles: Provide the plastic color paddles (Oriental Trading has them cheap) to look out a window. Mix the color to make observations. If you don’t have paddles, use colored tissue paper. Place small pieces over windows. Attach to a file folder cut out to make a color window. You can take these outside as well.
• Color Mixing Station: Provide cups of water in primary colors along with eye droppers. You will also need ice trays or somewhere for kids to mix their colors. Let the children take drops of colors and mix them to see what colors they can make.
• Color Walking Experiment: Use 6 clear plastic cups/containers. Fill 3 with water and make 1 red, 1 blue, 1 yellow. Place them in a circle or line with red, then empty, yellow, then empty, blue, them empty. Insert strips of paper towels that reach into both the colored water and then the empty. In a few hours the colors will “walk” and mix to make orange, green, purple.

Art Center

• Simple: Paint a rainbow
• Color Collage: Provide colored foam stickers and cut up paper to create a collage.
• Cotton Ball Painting: Provide several colors in a paint tray or ice cube tray. Use cotton balls clipped into clothespins. Dip and paint onto the white paper 🙂

Music & Movement

• Parachute Play: Place the chute on the floor. Provide objects of different colors to match to the colors on the parachute. Lego, balls, bean bags etc. You could place different # cards on each color to make more difficult.
• Frog Street Press has great color songs and you can purchase the CD for cheap. 
• Scarf Dancing: Use colored scarves for dancing to different types of music. Use bandannas, or tulle from any craft store.
• Color Move: Place laminated sheets of construction paper on the floor. Tape them down to prevent slipping. Use several of each color. Give directions- “slide” to a red, “skip” to a yellow, “fly” to a blue. Multiple students can be at each color card.

Read Alouds

• My Many Colored Days
• Mouse Paint
• A Color of His Own
• Pete the Cat – I love my White Shoes
• Rainbow Fish
• The Day the Crayons Quit

Sensory Play

• Fill table with Fruit Loops like cereal. You’ll need 1-2 boxes. Provide color coordinated cups or clear/white cups marked with sharpie of each color. Students can sort the fruit loops. They could also sort and thread them onto pipe cleaners.
• Rainbow Rice Writing: Provide letter cards to write in colored rice.