Learning Colors

I spent last Saturday afternoon with the grandkids. This time I brought a selection of art supplies for my grandson, Bubba. He was delighted to find green kid's scissors and a green plastic box to hold his new treasured art supplies. "Nana, you know that green is my favorite color," he said. "I know sweetie, that's why I bought you green scissors and a green art box."

When I'd gone to Bubba's PreK4 class the week before last for Grandparents' Day, his teacher had said Bubba needed more practice cutting with scissors and with coloring. Well, since I'm "into art" that's right in my line. So, in addition, I'd bought a new box of crayons (new ones are always better than old) and new watercolor markers, plus an art workbook that had lots of colored pages with lines, squares, circles, triangles, etc. for him to cut and paste.

The twins, not to be left out on anything, were put in their chairs and pushed up to the big dining room table. They were given coloring books and crayons and were instantly into their art projects. Amazing that  at only 19 month olds they were very intense about coloring. Our art time went on for a full two hours. Whoever said little ones only have a three minute attention span? These three have a longer attention span than me when it comes to art.

Well, halfway through our art projects, Baby1 (they both still call each other Baby) switched from her chair to my lap, which put us between Bubba and Baby2 at the dining table. Bubba would cut out a colored shape and hand it to Baby1. I'd say the word for that color and Baby1 would smile and repeat the word. Then she'd hand the colored piece of paper to Baby2 and I'd say the color and she would repeat the word. When we got to yellow, both girls beamed and sang out, "Yellow, yellow, yellow." They did the same with blue. "Blue, blue, blue," they repeated in their little sing-song voices. I pointed out to Baby2 that the blue circle matched her blue t-shirt. You could see the wheels turning in her brain and then she reached into the crayon box and picked out a bright yellow crayon. She handed the crayon to me and said, "Yellow," with a big smile on her face.

I was bowled over. Not only were the twins repeating the words for the colors, but they understood the concept of color. And at only 19 months old? So the color game went on and on. Green and purple were a big hit too and the girls continued to sing out their colors. Funny thing, when I said, "white," they just looked at me with annoyance. Apparently white held no interest for them? I tried to get them to say the word "pink" but maybe that color was too ordinary? Their bedroom is in pinks, so that's a color they see all the time. So maybe they didn't care to put a name to it?

Bubba, at almost 4 1/2, was more interested in the variation of colors. He grouped the shades of blue together, the oranges and reds, the yellows and golds. Though he's learning his letters, he can't read yet. So he wanted me to read the name of the colors on the side of each crayon. Though he knows all his colors, he added "coral," "lavender" and other new word colors to his vocabulary. Anyway, the four of us had a grand afternoon doing art and learning colors.

A Colorful World

Bubba's 1st Watercolor Painting

I spent Sunday with the grandkids. Bubba, my grandson (the twins still call him Bubba), wanted me to see his latest artwork, three pieces on their refrigerator. This grouping was all crayon drawings. Bubba explained the first one is "A Colorful World," the next "The Letter U" and the third "A Colorful World Too." Bubba's vision of the world is definitely beautiful. He loves color, his favorite being the color green. But for this grouping he chose a variety of colors, except for the "U" drawing. That was a big letter "U" in a pale orange color.

At age four and in PreK4, Bubba is still working on the alphabet. He tells me, "Nana, I know almost all of my letters now." I'm sure he'll have the rest of them down in no time. He tells me that "U" is his current favorite letter. Bubba is also anxious to learn how to read, as he loves books and wants them read to him over and over again, just like his Mama did when she was little. When I read to him I'm supposed to point to all the words, so he can follow along. That's the way Bubba says I'm supposed to do it. He's a bossy little guy and things have to be done his way. Ah, another budding "Alpha Male" in the world. So I understand the rules. We have to do things his way. He'll learn to read, but only in his own time.

Well, back to Bubba's artwork. Since I'm an artist myself, or at least I like to think I am, then I'm elated that my grandson loves to draw and to paint. I remember last November when he wanted me to work on his school art project with him. He was to decorate a big "turkey feather." So we used markers, stickers, pipe-cleaners, feathers, etc. (all supplied by his Mama). His Mama helped out and used the glue gun on the feathers and pipe-cleaners for us. Anyway, Bubba was very proud of the end result. A few days later I was able to see his turkey feather, along with all the other turkey feathers done by his classmates, gracing a big wall art of a turkey in the school hallway which was festooned with turkeys from every classroom. Wow! What a cool concept. I never went to a school that did cool stuff like that.

On our refrigerator we have two earlier pieces of Bubba's artwork. One is the first watercolor he did with the paints I bought him last year. He did four watercolor paintings that first day. He was careful to paint just about every square inch of the paper and he had an interesting use of color. The other painting on our refrigerator was done sometime after Christmas, using a gel-paint set he'd received from Santa. The colors he used that time were more pastel. I'm going to have to get a bigger refrigerator, because I refuse to remove those two early works of art any time soon.