Hear the color, tap the matching balloon
A big balloon sits at the top of the screen and a voice says: find the green balloon. Below it are four smaller balloons, and your child taps the one that matches. A right answer gets a cheer such as great job or fantastic, and the next balloon arrives as soon as the cheer has finished. Tap the big balloon, or the round arrow button, to hear the color again.
Each balloon gets one tap. A wrong tap is marked, the voice says oops, incorrect, and the right balloon lights up for a moment before the next one arrives, so your child sees the answer and never gets stuck. Each round has 50 balloons, with confetti every ten right answers. The score under the balloons shows how many were right and how many were wrong, and at the end of a round your child can play it again or move on to the next one.
Three rounds that grow with your child
Round one uses the everyday colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, brown, black, white and gray. The balloon to find at the top looks exactly like the one below, so matching is as easy as it can be.
Round two adds the shades grown-ups name without thinking but children have to learn: light blue, dark green, turquoise, navy blue, maroon, lavender, peach and lime green. The color to find now appears as a splash of paint rather than a balloon, so your child is matching the color itself and not the whole picture.
Round three puts close shades side by side. In the first two rounds colors that look alike are kept apart, so blue never sits next to purple and light blue never sits next to turquoise. In round three they can appear together, and telling blue from navy blue or green from dark green takes real looking. This is the round that keeps a five or six year old interested.
Why matching comes before naming
Most toddlers can put two things of the same color together long before they can tell you what that color is called. Matching only asks a child to see that two things look the same. Naming asks them to remember a word and attach it to what they see, which is a much bigger job. That is why the color to find is shown as a picture and said out loud at the same time: the matching is the part your child does, and the name is heard again and again until it starts to come out on its own.
A color never comes back soon after it was the one to find. The game waits until most of the colors in the round have had a turn, so a child is not asked for red three times in a row.
Playing with a younger child
At two or three, this works best on your lap with you saying the colors too. Point at the big balloon, say the color, and let your child do the tapping. The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests keeping screen time for children aged two to five to about an hour a day and sharing it with them, and a few minutes of a game like this, played together, sits comfortably inside that. If your child taps the wrong balloon, point at the one that lights up and say its color together before the next one arrives.
Take it off the screen
Color matching is everywhere at home once you start looking. Sort the socks from the laundry into color piles. Put the red blocks in one box and the blue ones in another. At snack time, ask your child to find something the same color as their cup. These are the same skill as the game, and doing it with real things is what makes it stick.
Frequently asked questions
What age is the color matching game for?
Most children who play are between two and six. A two year old can match the balloons in round one on a grown-up's lap, and round three puts close shades side by side, such as blue and navy blue, which still makes a kindergartner stop and look. Let your child move up a round when the last one starts to feel easy.
Does my child need to know the names of colors?
No. The color to find is always shown as a big picture at the top, so a child who cannot yet say green can still find it. The game says the name every time, and hearing it while matching is how the names start to stick. Matching colors usually comes well before naming them.
What happens when my child taps the wrong balloon?
The voice says oops, incorrect, the balloon that was right lights up for a moment so your child can see it, and the next balloon arrives. Each balloon gets one tap, so the right and wrong scores always add up to the balloons played. Watching wrong get smaller from one round to the next is a simple way to see progress.