Teaching colors

Kamdyn has been playing a game called "Balloons" on the iPad ever since we got it.  It's a game included in this Injini lite app.  For anyone who doesn't know much about the iPad, "lite" means it's a free version that does not include all the features.  We have the "lite", free version right now, but this app has some good games on it. Mostly from playing this app, Kamdyn has learned the colors red, yellow, and blue and their signs, because I will sign it to her while she is playing. 

She's really good at red.  I realized that she was picking up more with colors a couple of weeks ago when we were eating strawberries.  Kamdyn wanted more, so unprompted, she signed "red"  to let me know.  Wow!  I thought that was smart. 

Here's a couple of other things that we use to work on colors with her. 

Toys:

Toys are always so colorful, and that makes it easy to throw in a little "lesson" about colors, while you are playing.

A good piece of advice that I was reminded of recently is that more words is not better.  I don't need to ramble on and on about the yellow banana, and how the yellow banana is pretty, and don't you like the yellow banana.  Because if I become obnoxious, she will tune me out, just like I tune out my kids (Did I just say that?)

So short and simple.  "Kamdyn that's YELLOW.  Can you sign yellow (while I sign yellow)?" for example.  And when she gets tired of it, move on. 

Puzzles:

If I'm focusing more on colors, and not so much matching, I will just take one puzzle piece out and say something like, "Kamdyn put in the RED one."  Then, she's only focusing on that piece and color.

We use these paint sample cards as a matching and colors game.  We started out by just putting one color down, and then giving Kamdyn that same color to match or put on top.  Now, that she has down the idea of the "game", I put down two different colors (let's say blue and yellow), and then I give her a color (yellow) to match on the right card.

Books:

Even though Kamdyn just got an iPad, and I love the iPad, for me, nothing replaces books.  I love them.

DK stuff is great, and I love this book.  

This book may look familiar to some of you:

Every child in it happens to have Down syndrome, so that's pretty cool.

In college, we learned that the key to learning is repetition.  If she hears it, while visually seeing it enough, she will get it.  At least, that's my thought.  So repeat, repeat, repeat but in different ways to keep it interesting.

If you have any ideas that have worked for your child, I would love to add them on to the end here.  Just leave your idea in the comment section.