Last weekend was filled with unseasonably warm weather for February (52 degrees Fahrenheit). What better time to take a walk with the kids. We are country folk so walking around a city is an adventure. Within a two block radius of my father in-laws is an Aldi, Home Depot and Ollies.

To begin our adventure we needed snacks. The first stop was Aldis for juice pouches and granola bars.While walking the isles we had to name the colors of boxes, bags, cans and containers of food. We also pointed out letters my preschooler recognized in the names of foods. Once our purchases were packed into the stroller we were off to Home Depot.

Home Depot has a great display of paint chips in many amazing colors. Preschooler named off all the colors he knew. Then we talked about shades of colors. After seeing his struggle with different shades, I got an idea for a simple color matching activity.

I grabbed a bunch of paint chips in primary colors, and then noticed a pamphlet with multiple shades of each primary color. After grabbing a few extra paint chips for other activities, we left to walk around Ollies.

In Ollies we sat on the floor in the book aisle and began reading. As we were finishing our third book, the hubs surprised us by coming to drive us back to the in-laws because it had begun raining. This concluded our city adventure.

The next day while baby was deep in a formula coma and preschooler was being educated at school, I got to work cutting apart 80 little squares of different shaded colors. I lucked out from cutting the rest apart as in my excitement I forgot to pick up white, black and brown paint chips (silly mommy). I will get them the next time I am in town.

TEST RUN: Preschooler came home asking to do an activity. Pulling out the zip bag of paint chips I explained that he had to simply match the little shades of color with the big color card. I told him to do as many as he could and I would help him with those he could not figure out. I set him up at the kitchen table while I went to change the baby for the 25^th time.

After 15 minutes, he excited chimed “I’m done!” I have to admit I was surprised that there were nine little squares left.

BRAG ALERT: I know preschooler is a quick learner and is very intelligent but sometimes he amazes meat how awesome he is!

The nine shades that were confusing to him were dark shades that could be considered one color or another. For example, is this brown or dark green?

Preschooler enjoyed this simple and free activity so much that he cleared the cards, messed up the little shade squares and matched the colors again.