Colour & Create (EYFS)

Inside Colour & Create (EYFS)

naming colours all around us, mixing red, yellow and blue to make orange, green and purple, light and dark shades, drawing myself, and a colour collection from home. Grab crayons, paints or pencils. About 20 gentle minutes of making with a grown-up.

Learning objectives

• name colours confidently while spotting them in the world around them;
• mix primary colours — red and yellow make orange, blue and yellow make green, red and blue make purple, and red and white make pink;
• notice and make light and dark shades of the same colour;
• draw a self-portrait, looking carefully at hair, eyes and clothes;
• collect and sort colours from everyday objects at home, talking about what they made.

Activities in this book

1. Make 1 — Colour Spotter

   walk slowly around the room together and say each colour name out loud as you spot it. There are colours hiding everywhere!

2. Make 2 — Magic Colour Mixing

   if you have paints, really try each mix on scrap paper first — watch the new colour appear like magic, then choose your answer.

3. Make 3 — Light & Dark Shades

   press softly with a crayon for a light shade and press harder for a dark shade — or with paint, add a little white to make it lighter.

4. Make 4 — Drawing Myself

   look in a mirror together first! Talk about hair colour, eye colour and your smile, then take your time drawing — every self-portrait is perfect.

5. Make 5 — My Colour Collection at Home

   a tray or a piece of paper makes a lovely collection spot. Sock drawers, toy boxes and the fruit bowl are full of colours — collect gently and put things back after!

Suggestions for teaching

• Making comes first. The screen questions are tiny — the real learning is in the crayons, paint and collecting.
• Colour spotting. Say colour names out loud together as you hunt; naming while looking builds vocabulary fast.
• Mixing. If you can, let your child really mix two blobs of paint and watch the new colour appear before answering on screen.
• Shades. Show that pressing softly or adding white makes a colour lighter, and pressing hard makes it darker.
• Self-portrait. Look in a mirror together first and chat about what you see — the talking matters as much as the drawing.