Sensorial: Colour Box 3

A couple of tutorials ago, we covered Colour Boxes 1 & 2 from the sensorial area of our curriculum. The activities associated with these two boxes focus on primary and secondary colours; once children have mastered the identification of the specified colours, it’s time to move on to Colour Box 3, which focuses on shades of colour.

In Colour Box 3 there are 63 tablets: seven shades of nine colours – red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple, brown, pink, and grey. To start off with, children will work with one shade of colour. The directress will place 7 shaded tablets of the chosen colour on a flat surface and the child will be asked to find the two tablets that are the most different (the darkest and lightest tablets), placing them next to one another in order to observe the contrast.

Then, after placing the darkest tablet on the left, the directress will tell the child to look for another tablet that is only a little different; once the child has done this it will be placed directly to the right of the darkest shade. The child will then look for the tablet that is only a little different from the new one, and so the exercise continues s until the child has successfully arranged the shades in decreasing order.

Have a look at the below tutorial for a clear application of the Colour Box 3 exercise:

The above exercise is repeated with all of the seven colours included in the box, and eventually different shades of different colours can be muddled, with the child selecting and ordering the correct colour sequences.

After the completion of all the colour box exercises, with a clear understanding of colour names and shades, children will be able to orient themselves in a world of colour.
If you’d like further information about this tutorial, feel free to contact us at info@saintandrewsmontessori.com. We’re happy to answer any questions.