Collages are an easy way to reinforce color concepts, and they also help children practice their fine motor skills as they cut and paste. Pass out kid-friendly magazines and ask them to find pictures in certain colors. Have them cut out the colors and glue them onto paper. To make it easier, give them construction paper in those colors. For example, yellow items should be glued onto the yellow paper. Then, display the color collages on a bulletin board and talk about the items that are on each collage. Ask the students if those things also come in other colors, for example.
Paint is an obvious choice when thinking about an activity to reinforce color concepts, but you don't always have to use traditional paints and techniques to create a masterpiece. Try using tinted whipped cream or pudding for a delicious and fun way to finger paint. Or, dab a bit of color on a plastic tray (make sure it has a lip) and let the students roll a marble around the tray. As it runs through the paint, it will create interesting designs. This activity is a good one for when you have finished learning about all the colors, as you can dab all the colors of the rainbow in the tray. In this way, each child will end up with a distinctive rainbow of his own. Or, paint something other than paper. Fabric paints can be used to decorate a "color week" T-shirt that the children can wear to school.
Clay or play dough is an excellent craft material to teach about colors. You can make your own homemade batch and add a few drops of food coloring to tint it in whatever color you want. Use red clay to make apples, cherries and other items that are red, or green and yellow clay to make pretty flowers. Alternately, use clay that hardens to form bowls and sculptures, and then paint them with tempura paints in whatever color or colors you are studying that week.
Sensory bottles are an excellent craft for young children because they encourage the child to explore and investigate. Fill an empty 2-liter soda bottle with items of or relating to the color you are learning about. If you are studying the color blue, for example, fill a bottle 2/3 of the way with water and 1/3 with clear baby oil. Then, add some blue food coloring and watch the blue "wave" move around the bottle when it's shaken or rolled. Or, add corn syrup instead of baby oil, and sprinkle some red, green or gold glitter into the bottle. The glitter will bond with the sticky corn syrup and swirl in interesting patterns around the bottle. For safety reasons, use hot glue to secure the lid to the bottle and then wrap the lid in duct or packing tape as an extra precaution.
The manipulation of beads is good for developing fine motor skills and it also works well for learning about colors. String beads on a wire to make necklaces. Reinforce pattern concepts by asking the children to string a red bead, then a green bead, then another red bead, and so on. Or, use melting beads to create sun catchers in a rainbow of colors.