What age to start teaching toddler colours/numbers etc

[BaffledMum22]

FTM here so openly admit I’m 100% winging this 🤣

What age is it developmentally appropriate to start teaching toddlers certain things such as colours, shapes, letters, numbers etc?

Is it something you consciously do with your toddler eg, setting up colour matching activities or naming shapes? Or do you just bring it into everyday chat eg, ‘the ball is red’?

DH and I don’t have any other children in our extended family and we’re the first of our friend group to have children so we’ve never really spent a huge amount of time around them. I have no idea what level of knowledge (if any!) would be expected by the time DS starts nursery at 3 for example.

I think you just mention it when you're doing things like 'oh look let's get your red gloves' etc. I wouldn't bother with setting up activities. How old is ds?

Tbh I don’t remember because it’s constant referencing- colours are one of the first things I think my child grasped the concept of. Soft play ball pits were good for this “pass me the red ball”.
As for sitting down with activities and tasks- I wouldn’t worry just reference the colours is their existing toys.

And count when you walk up the stairs, count fingers as you cut nails, sing counting songs etc .

Agree with PP - just use simple, useful words all the time.

‘Let’s build a tower. Red block first. Oh no! The blue block has fallen off!’

Repeat a billion times.

A wide variety of good toys and games are useful props, but I’ve never consciously decided ‘today we’re going to learn colours in the morning, then numbers this afternoon’ or whatever.

My DD knew how to count to 10 and her ABC when she started private nursery at 2. I used board books and flash cards. I was prompted to start teaching her at about 1.5 years when I heard my friend’s DS count to 10. He’s one month younger but went to nursery at 1. I wanted her to keep apace with kids that went to nursery even though she was at home with me.

From birth! It’s just something you do the whole time as you go along. “Look at that cat! It’s a black cat.”, “one, two, three fingers of toast” etc.

As PPs have said, we never specifically taught it, we just used descriptive words eg “the big red ball”, “the fluffy orange jumper” etc day to day.
Same with numbers really, so many nursery rhymes have numbers, and just counting little things like how many blocks they’ve put in a tower. I don’t think it was any different to other vocabulary in that she just picked it up as she heard us talk.

Again just use in conversation. From 2/ 3 mine enjoyed colour matching games (Orchard and similar).

I’ve never specifically taught them. As others have said it’s just naturally repeated over and over as we chat and play and go about normal activities. Tbh I find they often learn things despite me rather than because of me!

Former early years teacher and mum to a 3.5 year old. We don't deliberately 'teach' him anything, just read to him lots and think carefully about our language e.g oh look let's start the tower with the blue block. Nothing else is necessary imo. Let them be little. Learning through play is vital at this age so I try to provide lots of opportunities for that.

I think it's one of those things that once they are ready for, the pick up really quickly, but until then you can try all you like and it won't stick.

DC2 was (and still is good with language), she picked up her colours very quickly and I don't remember actually having to teach her them. DC3 can sort things by colour so he clearly knows what they are, but he finds words harder to remember and at 2.5 he still can't name colours accurately. I make sure he gets lots opportunities to hear the colour names but don't try anything else, I think it'll suddenly click and he'll get them all.

My youngest is 20 months and I will point things out that she is playing with. Like name the shapes of stuff etc. Whereas my son is 4 and he will do more specific colour matching activities etc but I don't do as much with him now he's in preschool!

I never consciously taught this - they just pick it up in every day interaction! DC are 3 and 5 now and I would say fully grasped counting / recognising numbers written down after they started the 'preschool' room at nursery - so taught by a EYFS teacher not me!

Colours, shapes and numbers can just be included in everyday conversation and play. If the child starts to show a particular interest in anything specific try and lean into that and focus on that (but you'll probably do this naturally anyway!).

Reading and writing letters and numbers will generally come a bit later, but you can't start to reference in general conversation/play around 2 years old. Maybe get some magnetic letters/numbers for the fridge, point out the first sound in their name if you see it around. If they show an interest, lean into it. If they don't show an interest that's no problem, most kids don't until school age.

The skills nursery will be looking for at 3 will be social skills (not expecting perfect behaviour but can they share, take turns, listen to instructions, follow directions, wait their turn etc), self-care skills (can they put on a coat, toilet independently, have a go at putting shoes on etc) and pre-learning skills (can they turn pages in a book and follow a basic story/point things out in the picture, can they make marks with a crayon/pen/pencil in a deliberate way, do they have the fine and gross motor skills they'll need to read and write etc). It sounds a lot but 95% of this will be covered by normal childcare (reading, drawing, Duplo, playdough, the park, meeting other kids etc), you don't actually need to actively teach them really.

Yeah, they’re little sponges, they just pick it all up. Don’t worry too much about exactly when DS learns it all — so long as you’re singing songs like ‘five little speckled frogs’ and talking all the time about what you can see he’ll be absorbing it. For counting and generally getting comfortable with numbers Numberblocks on the BBC is really great. The episodes are nice and short so you can let him have a couple without feeling like you’re losing him to screen time and then you can sing the (surprisingly catchy) songs together.

Yep just mention stuff constantly. DD is 2 years 4 months and can identify common colours, count to around 12, can identify some numbers written down. Not much on letters yet but I'm starting to point them out more. Lots of songs with numbers in help, counting out blueberries as they go in her bowl etc! I'm a SAHM and she's not at nursery so I'm conscious that I need to 'teach' her these things but I don't set up specific activities, it's not necessary. They're like little sponges and I find she'll take it all in and eventually she'll come out with it again herself (she can count backwards from 5 to 1 because I've sang zoom zoom zoom a million times- not to specifically teach her to do that but because she always finds it hilarious when you get to blast off at the end!)

Thanks guys 😊 that’s all really helpful!!! I try and not pay much attention to milestones etc but it’s easy to doubt what you should be doing etc.
I don’t have any concerns about DS or his development, I was more concerned about my teaching and if I should be doing anything more specific 😅😂 we read lots, bring lots of learning into play and I do bring colours etc into everyday chat and repeat, repeat, repeat.

He’s 16 months and can point out and name 4 or 5 colours, can pick out 5 or 6 shapes (although can only name 2), he can pick out his name if it’s written down and he can name lots of everyday objects like foods, body parts, clothing items etc.

He’s 16 months and can point out and name 4 or 5 colours, can pick out 5 or 6 shapes (although can only name 2), he can pick out his name if it’s written down and he can name lots of everyday objects like foods, body parts, clothing items etc

I don’t think you have anything to worry about, as this is pretty advanced for 16 months. Just keep doing what you are doing.

@AliceW89 thank you. As I said, I have no idea what’s normal for this age - I work PT and a family member looks after him those 2 days that I work. He doesn’t go to any form of childcare with other children at the moment so I’m just conscious of him getting the right exposure to these things through me and making sure I’m doing by part properly 😊

You don't need to do anything - just talk to them a lot. My DC were quite slow to learn their colours, because DH is colour blind, so I don't describe things by their colour around him - "pass me the red ball" would get a blank look look and more questions! So I did start making a conscious effort to use colour vocabulary around them. But as long as you talk and play and follow up their interests,they will learn loads without formal teaching.

I took mine to the library for singing and story time group from 6 months and got children's books out on loan. Loads of really good toddler books available that help them recognise colours, animals, numbers ect

They aren’t actually formally teaching this stuff at nursery at this age either, you know.

My son is 18mo and in the last couple of weeks seems to now know a few shapes and colours. We have shape sorter toys, colour match things and crayons etc. I just build in taking about shapes when playing and talk about colours all the time ... blue shoes, get your yellow hat etc. He also goes to nursery 3 times a week so I imagine they do a lot of this stuff. He has all of a sudden started saying circle all the time lately 😄

My twins have just turned two.
They are with a nanny at home, so I was conscious they might be missing what other children are taught at Creche, and am making an effort to teach them letters, numbers etc.

For letters, I got a magnetic board with letters. They now know all the letters of the alphabet. Eg if I hold up a P, they say Pee.
They then recognize and point if letters in books.

For numbers, they can kind of count to 10 (they might miss out 5, or say 7 twice). I have magnetic letters too, but haven't taken them out yet, since I don't want to confuse them (Eg letter O, number 0 / letter I/ number 1). But we count going up the stairs, when spooning out food etc.

They know all the colors.

I had forgotten about shapes, but will now start teaching shapes, using their shape sorter. They probably know circle and triangle.

We did it as we went along from when they were understanding speech. We did baby signing so my eldest signed his colours long before he could say them. Some take longer than others to pick it up. We had a lovely spot the dog book that had shapes, colours, numbers, animals in they loved and we read again and again. Shape sorters, building blocks, pointing out the green grass etc when out.