Don't Lick Your Sister: Numbers and Colors (Preschool Activity)

My oldest daughter {turned 3 in October} and we have been doing lots of everyday activities focusing on letter recognition and sounds that letters make. But it occurred to me recently that I hadn't even begun to work with her on recognizing the symbols for numbers. She's doing really well at understanding the concept of numbers and is able to even do some adding and subtracting but we just hadn't touched on reading number symbols.

Since we have been setting the microwave timer while we're breaking the thumb sucking habit I decided to start there with talking about numbers. Because what 3 year old doesn't like to push buttons? Instead of setting the timer for 20 minutes we do 19 minutes and 24 seconds (the seconds change each time so she learns new numbers). She has really enjoyed learning her numbers or, at least, pushing the buttons. I was pleasantly surprised to learn after a couple days she could already recognize a few numbers; so we decided to do a numbers activity that also incorporated mixing paint to learn how secondary colors are made. [Please note: as she is only 3, I didn't actually refer to colors as primary or secondary. We just talked about mixing colors to make new colors.]

All you need for this project:

- foam bath numbers

- crayola washable primary (bold) colors finger paint and also regular white crayola washable paint

- large paper

- paint brushes

- smock (optional but highly recommended because it can get messy!)

When I started this I didn't actually plan on talking about colors but I asked Autumn what color she wanted to paint with first and she told me pink. She had learned about white and red Play-Doh making pink Play-Doh at daycare earlier in the week so I decided to reinforce that learning. She helped squeeze the paint out and mix it until it turned pink. She chose a number out of the pile of numbers and we discussed which number it was. Then she just used her paint brushes to paint directly onto the foam bath numbers and then "stamped" it onto a piece of paper. I quickly realized things were getting a bit messy so we made one piece of paper a "work station" and then had her put the numbers on a separate piece of paper.

We also made purple, orange and green paint. And for good measure we painted and stamped the letters in her name too. One of the best parts of this project is the super easy clean up. The washable paint just comes right off the foam material (even the ones that had started to dry a little). Since this activity, Autumn has begun to recognize and point out numbers in our everyday interactions just as she is able to do with her letters.

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