Montessori Mom

Colored Tablets: Montessori's Wonderful World of Color

This classic Montessori sensorial lesson has been a cornerstone of the MontessoriMom collection since 2007. Irene shares her firsthand experiences with both traditional silk-thread tablets and modern painted versions, along with practical tips for making your own.

Montessori and the Wonderful World of Color

Colored Tablets

Montessori colored tablets sharpen visual acuity. Children begin to understand the color spectrum with these wonderful lessons. Color discrimination helps with later learning, such as using logic, classification of similar and different objects, groupings and patterns of color in nature. This exercise helps develop visual language skills. These visual skills are used in reading and math skills.

Montessori first used colored silk thread tablets instead of our modern painted ones. My first directress attended one of the first Montessori preschools in Holland and experienced the thread tablets first hand. She explained that the way we present the painted color tablets, holding them on the side and not touching the colored part, was because the colored silk thread would soil from fingerprints. She remembered how beautiful the thread spools were, the colors were vivid and very distinct. These silk thread tablets were inviting to use, and much easier to match and grade than our modern painted ones.

I do own the modern colored tablets and they usually work well. But, I have found that some of the colors look too similar. Sometimes, less than perfect shades of color makes the task confusing for some children to grade and match the colors.

The teachers even had difficulty grading the magenta and red colors. Some of these colors are so similar that it can be frustrating to figure out the correct color group. Also, the painted tablets are so shiny that the glare from the light makes the colors less distinct.

I found by purchasing colored spools of thread, I can do the same exercises with better color selections. Many students found the spools of thread much easier to match. Also, it makes sense to hold the spools carefully so that you don't touch the thread.

You can use thread, yarn, ribbon, or any type of thin thread material. Make your own tablets from cardboard, balsa wood strips, wooden shapes or wooden cubes you can buy from any craft department or store.

Evenly wind the thread onto the boards or cubes to make your own color boxes.

Provide two of each primary color spool for matching. The secondary colors are used for both matching and shading, so make sure to have enough colors to classify from light to dark.

Some Good Links for Color

• The history of names of colors makes a good key lesson for the Story of Writing.
• Researching the history behind the names of colors is a fascinating topic — try searching for "history of color names" for wonderful resources.
• Crayola has a great chronology of crayon color names on their website. Changes in society and history have an impact on the era names of crayons.
• Elizabethan colors reflect their Shakespearean culture and society — searching for "Elizabethan color names" will turn up some interesting results.

Creative Ways to Explore Color

There is such a joy about colors. Color plays such a large part in our lives. Just watching a sunset can be awe inspiring.

There are so many ways to appreciate color. Art is a great creative way to use color. Crayons, colored paper, markers, paint, colored pencils and chalk are some mediums to introduce to your children.

As seasons change, observe the different colors of trees, flowers, grass and grains. Talk about your favorite color with your children. When your children get dressed in the morning, talk about what colors they are wearing. Color is everywhere we look.

Sorting and matching colors makes an interesting and happy learning experience for children. After doing this lesson our children appreciated painting and mixing different secondary colors using primary colors of tempera paint. A love and interest in art was a by-product of using the colored tablets.

Recommended Materials

If you would like to purchase a ready-made set of Montessori color tablets, here are two options:

• Montessori Color Tablets — 1st Box (primary color matching for beginners)
• Montessori Color Tablets — 3rd Box (full grading set with 63 color tablets for advanced work)

You can also make your own using colored thread, yarn, or ribbon wound onto cardboard or wooden pieces, as described above.

Free Printouts

Free Color Nomenclature Cards (PDF) — Print these three-part cards to extend the colored tablets lesson into language and vocabulary work.

Color Word List (PDF) — A handy reference sheet of color words for reading and writing activities.

Resources

Lesson of the Day 1 has fun activities for preschool color skills.

Free Nomenclature Color Cards — Our full collection of printable color cards for the Montessori classroom.

Color Printouts — Additional color-related printable materials.