View More Preschool Color Activities and Lessons

The Fourth of July is a great time to integrate fun red, white, and blue reading/language arts and mathematics activities into your daily curriculum. For example, let children practice creating patterns while doing the following activity:

Star Patterns
Cut sponges into star shapes. Put red, white, and blue paint into separate shallow pie tins. Provide children with yellow or black construction paper and let them dip the sponges into the paint to make patterns on their paper. Encourage children to explain their patterns.

Stamping Patterns
Use different star rubber stamps to create a simple red, white, and blue pattern on the top half of a piece of colored paper. Ask children to recreate the pattern on the bottom half of the paper. Tip: Start with one stamp and have your child pick which stamp you used. Begin with simple patterns and progress to more complicated patterns.

Sizing Up the Stars
Cut out many different sized red, white, and blue stars. Ask children to arrange the stars from largest to smallest and smallest to largest. Have children sort stars according to size or according to size and color.

Number the Stars
Cut out red, white, and blue stars and number them from 1–10. Ask children to order the numbers from least to greatest and greatest to least.

The Colors Red, White, and Blue
Fill a clear plastic bin with various items of the color red, white, or blue such as toys, pictures, crayons, fabric pieces, household items, etc.

Instructions:
Have children sit in a circle on the floor and pass the bin around the circle. Let each child take one item out of the bin. Taking turns, each child names the item and uses complete sentences such as "I have a red (white, blue) ribbon."

Extension:
Mix red (white, blue) items with other colored items. Have children sort the red (white, blue) items and place them on a red (white, blue) piece of fabric or paper.

My Favorite Red, White, and Blue Things Booklet
Let children cut or tear red, white, and blue pictures out of magazines, or let them color pictures of their choice red, white, and blue. Cut printing paper into fourths and let children glue or tape their cutouts to the paper to create a My Favorite Red, White, and Blue Things booklet. Staple the pages together. Encourage children to share their books or display them in the Reading Center.

Things that Are Red, White, or Blue
Brainstorm with children things that are red, white, or blue.

Red: strawberries, apples, cherries, blood, radishes, tomatoes, firetrucks, watermelon, fall leaves, cardinals, ladybugs, lobsters, rubies, stop signs, lips

White: onions, chickens, rabbits, beluga whale, clouds, ghosts, milk, polar bears, snowflakes, teeth, flour, rice, bread, pearls

Blue: blue whale, bluebird, sky, blue jeans, ocean, Morpho butterfly, blueberries, robin eggs, delphinium flowers

SNACK: Red, White, and Blue Skewer

Make this fun edible Fourth of July snack. You will need blueberries, strawberries, marshmallows, and wooden skewers or toothpicks for this red, white, and blue snack!