Mighty Summer List Number Nine.

Teach Cub his colors, as best as he can learn them.

(Please note the awesome drawings of marine life, created by yours truly.)

This was a task that I wasn't entirely sure how to approach. When Cub was learning to speak (and as he continues to learn to communicate), I've discovered the value of repetition and expansion. When Cub says something, I typically repeat back what he has said to me, adding more detail to his initial sentence. For example, if he sees a frog and says, "Look! Frog!" I said, "Yes! There is a green frog in the grass!" and he replies back, "Green frog in the grass DOWNHILL!" And I say, "That's right! There's a green frog in the grass going downhill! He's a BIG frog!" It's kind of our little game, seeing who can create the biggest sentence. It's helped Cub learn adjectives and prepositions (unbeknownst to him, obviously) and, of course, several of these adjectives include colors.

The color word that Cub learned first was "blue". I'm not sure when he first decided that everything was blue, but for several months we would ask, "What color is that?" and he would say, "Blue!" Red firetrucks, yellow flowers, green grass, purple cars, orange balls ... all blue. So funny. We were, eventually, able to teach him what was actually blue, so he now pauses and cocks his head thoughtfully before answering our question of color. To help him along with his colors, I decided to whip out his paints and create a color-themed day each day last week. Tuesday was Yellow Day, Wednesday was Blue Day, Thursday was Red Day, etc. On each of these days, I drew a picture of something in that color and he used only that color paint to decorate it. It was pretty funny. I'm a terrible artist.

Yellow Day was a hit. I drew the sun and Cub had a blast. Wednesday's Blue Day was also a success, as Cub is quite familiar with the ocean blue. On Thursday, I drew some cherries in honor of Red Day, and as Cub smeared the paint across his paper, I declared, "These cherries are RED!" He smiled big and said, "Red! Cherries! Red!" And then I asked, "What color are the cherries?" He smiled big again and replied, "BLUE!"

Nice.

I again told him that the cherries were red, and again asked him what color they were. "BLUE!" he replied again happily. Then I worried that perhaps he wasn't learning colors, but that he was only repeating what he heard from me. So, I picked up the yellow sun he had painted previously and asked, "What color is this?" He paused, cocked his head, and replied, "Lellow." Ah! Good! I picked up the ocean painting from the day before and asked, "What color is THIS?" and he replied, "Blue!" I pointed to the cherries and asked, "And what color is this?" and he happily replied, "BLUE!"

So, you know. We're working on it. :)

I think I'm going to continue the color-themed days, choosing one day to only eat one color food (or try, anyway) and fun things like that. I don't care how quickly he picks up on things, I just want to be sure that the learning part is fun.

Fun is good.

Have a lovely day.