Seat children around a table. Seat yourself at the table so that you are in clear view of all children. Place onto the table a tray of threading beads and threading laces that are in colors of red, blue and yellow.
Pick up a red threading lace and say, "This is red." Tell children that you wish to find red beads to match the color of your threading lace. Demonstrate by threading a couple of red beads onto your lace.
Ask each child to find a red threading lace. Challenge children to fill their laces by threading only red beads onto their red laces. Collect the completed laces and place them into a red tray.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 by asking children to match blue beads to blue laces and then to match yellow beads to yellow laces. Place the completed blue laces into a blue tray and place the completed yellow laces into a yellow tray.
Invite children to imagine that a "naughty pixie" is going to to try to trick them. Ask children to close their eyes. Use a cloth to cover the tray of red beads. Place your hands underneath the cloth, remove a couple of red beads and then thread a few blue beads and yellow beads onto the strands.
Ask children to open their eyes. Listen to their initial reactions and explanations. Briefly assess children's color identification skills by asking each child to point to a specific color of bead. For example, say, "Can you point to a blue bead, Jake?"
Repeat steps 5 and 6 by using the blue tray of beads. Remove a couple of blue beads, place red and yellow beads onto the blue strands and briefly assess children by asking them to point to specific colors.
Ask children to thread beads onto laces by using any of the three selected colors. Once completed, invite children to tell you about their laces by describing the colors that they have used. For example, ask, "Chloe, which colors did you use?"