Looking at how important colour and shape are to children

"Colour and shape are two very noticeable attributes of the world around us."

Understanding colour and shape are the most important aspects children need to learn at a very young age, before they start to learn how to read, write, etc. This will help them in all types of subjects throughout their time in education, learning the difference in colours and shapes will assist a child when learning numbers and letters; it's the same procedure just with a different topic.

Day to day life, without realising you see so many different shapes and colours, just by looking at the window you might see green leaves on trees, blue sky, the block shapes of houses, this a way for children to categorise and define what they see. Having the knowledge of shape and colour will help to develop their way of acknowledging what things are in their everyday life, by knowing that leaves are usually green they can easily recognise this.

There are so many interactive shape toys and games children have at a young age, this is an area in which they can use 'shape sorting toys' and help develop their problem solving skills too. When a child can recognise the characteristics of a square, they can then match it with the square hole on the toy. Learning these new colours and shapes will help children in many areas:

Verbal communication- This will help them in describing the world around them, they can recognise a shape and are able to point this out.

Sorting- sorting shapes into specific order, being able to label which shape is which.

Healthy and safety- For example, using red to determine danger or 'stop' (traffic lights). Also, on people's skin, a blue colour could indicate someone has a bruise, red skin could indicate burnt skin, etc. Understanding colours and what they can represent is very important in life, especially for young children as it will help them in all kinds of situations.

Letters and numbers- The written symbols used for letters and numbers are just shapes, understanding the shape of individual letters will help understand the difference between them, therefore making it easier for a child to be able to read and write, both numbers and letters.

"It can take until the age of 3 before children can fully understand the difference between colours and name them".

Overall, it is really important for children to start developing and understanding of colour and shapes from a young age as they're important in almost every subject and will help them in everyday life, looking at an object or a food and by knowing the shape or colour of this they will then realise what the object is.