Colour Measuring

Expired
Print
Program Name: Preschool 2

During a loose parts activity, Benjamin, Advithi, James and Naya were exploring different materials they gathered in our classroom. During our hunt for materials, Benjamin found coloured measuring cups and said to me, "I like these" and then proceeded to stack them and label the colours of each cup. Advithi and I had noticed that there were coloured blocks that matched the colours of the measuring cups that Benjamin was playing with. I asked Benjamin if he could sit beside us and I asked, "Could Advithi and I give you these blocks?" and we held out four blocks all in varying colours. Benjamin said "Wow, I like the blue block," and I suggested "I do too, it matches the blue measuring cup you have." He then grabbed the blue block from my hand and placed it into his blue measuring cup and said, "Can I have more?"

A child stacking measuring cups

Over the next 10 minutes, Naya and James would bring us blocks of all colours and Benjamin and Advithi would sort through them to place them in the appropriate cups. When I gave Benjamin a white block that did not match any colours of the cups, he said "Wait, I don’t have a cup that's white. I can't put it in any of them.” Benjamin sat for a minute then said, "We can put that one back" and Naya said, "I can do it for you" and proceeded to put the block in the large tray and searched for a colour that did match.

Once the cups were full, I asked Benjamin and Advithi, "How many blocks do you think we fit in there? It looks like a lot!" He replied, "I don’t know, 5?" and Advithi counted the blocks she could see and guessed "7?” I said, "That’s a good guess. Why don’t you dump it out and we can count together?" When we counted a total of 8 cubes, Benjamin laughed and said, "I said 5, it was 8 and she guessed 7!" Benjamin, James, Naya, Advithi and I then each had a cup to fill, organize and measure with.

This experience provided an opportunity for the children to develop their mathematical and colour recognition skills.

A child exploring blocks and a measuring cup

 Children playing with loose parts