Learning Colors and the iPad

Zoya is really into colors lately. We started working on colors a few months ago and she has mastered them! She loves naming the colors of everything she sees! Zoya learns best with LOTS of repetition. I found a program that works great with Zoya to teach basic concepts like colors, shapes, numbers, and letters. You can check out Preschool Prep HERE. I absolutely love these videos and books and have made some flashcards to go along with them for Zoya. We are moving from colors onto numbers. The only thing I didn't like about the colors program was that it didn't have the colors brown or pink. But otherwise the repetition of this program is exactly what Zoya needs in order to learn best. The videos are basically a screen with the color and then a "color puff" doing an activity and the narrator repeats the color name over and over and over in different tones. It seems boring to me, but Zoya just LOVES it and it has really helped her learn her colors! When Zoya was first watching this video, we'd sit with her and show her each color sign along with the color and word on the screen. I also made color flashcards to help her carry over the concept of color people to actual colors.

I'm posting a video of Zoya using an iPad app to practice colors from the same preschool prep company. They go along with the videos and Zoya just loves practicing her colors with this app. It also helps her to focus for longer periods of time. I know you're probably thinking, seriously your 2 1/2 year old has an iPad? Yes she does and it has already helped her in soooo many ways! There is a lot of research being done on children with special needs using the iPad to communicate and improve many skill areas.  We are trying out some augmentative communication apps to see which one works best with Zoya before we decide which one to buy. There are so many apps that are helping Zoya with speech, academic skills, attention and focus, and fine motor skills for sure! If you're still not convinced (or if you're using or want to use an iPad with your child) check out Babies with iPads.

In the video you can see Zoya is a little distracted :) She had already been practicing numbers and colors on the iPad for 20 minutes when I finally remembered to video tape her doing it. She cracked me up feeding the characters and Elmo her snack! You will see the one she gets wrong she hits the other two that are wrong before selecting the only one left (the right choice)...this is one thing I don't love about this app...she likes to see the other colors disappear so if I'm not right there she will intentionally pick the wrong color to watch it disappear. I wish they would just not do anything if you pick the wrong color.  It took a couple times of me just turning the iPad off and telling her all done because she wasn't listening to the directions...now she only picks the wrong one occasionally or if she is distracted or not paying attention. Using this program has really helped with her being able to say the color names as well because she hears them over and over and over....repetition is exactly what my girl needs! She can also name all the colors verbally or by signing when they're presented to her, although she is slightly less accurate, but doing pretty darn well!