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Years have passed since those kindergarten days, but some things haven’t changed.

My son is grown now. He is no longer the little boy bringing me crayons or making school pictures at the kitchen table.

But he still sees some colors differently.

He knows what colors are supposed to be

One of the things that became easier as he got older was learning the names of colors.

He can see a color one way and still know what that color is called. He knows what it is “supposed to be,” even when his eyes are showing him something different.

That distinction became especially important when he was young.

The sky can still look pink

That little boy who once looked at a picture and told me the sky was pink still sees the sky differently.

He knows the sky is supposed to be blue.

But what he sees can still look different to him.

And honestly, that is something our family has learned to accept instead of argue with.

We still ask what he sees first

Our family developed a habit when he was growing up.

Instead of immediately telling him what color something was, we would ask:

“What color do you see?”

That question stuck.

We still use it today.

The grass story still makes me smile

At one point, we asked him what color the grass was before telling him what we expected him to say.

He said brown.

He still sees it as brown, but he knows grass is supposed to be green.

It is one of those things that reminds me that knowing the name of a color and actually seeing that color aren’t necessarily the same experience.

And then there was the green coffee

I drink a lot of coffee with creamer. To me, it looks brown—almost like peanut butter.

One day I asked my son to bring me my coffee.

He came back and said:

“Here is your green coffee, Ma.”

He still calls it green.

But he knows it is supposed to be brown.

Those little moments have become funny family stories now, but they also remind me how different someone’s experience of the same ordinary thing can be.

Growing up changed the way he learned

When he was in elementary school, reading the color names on crayons and markers gave him another way to work with colors.

By high school, there was less drawing and more pottery and hands-on projects. I noticed that the colors he used often seemed more muted to me.

He was still creating. He was simply doing it in a different stage of life.

He buys his own clothes now—but still calls Mom

When he was little, I bought basic-colored clothes for him so I knew things would match.

Now he’s grown and buys his own clothes.

And yet, every so often, he still calls Mom and asks if something matches.

Some things change.

Some things don’t. ❤️

What I learned from watching him grow

I used to think helping him meant teaching him to see colors the way I saw them.

Over time, I realized that wasn’t the point.

The point was helping him understand the world he was living in while respecting the way he experienced it.

That lesson became part of the reason I created A Rainbow of Shapes in 2008.

The book was never about telling a child that what they saw was wrong. It was about finding another way to learn.

The story is still part of our family

My son grew up, but the lesson stayed with me.

Sometimes the best thing a parent can do is pause before correcting a child and ask what they see.

That one question can open the door to understanding.

If you’d like to read the full story behind the book, visit the KidsWonderArt Story.

You can also visit the Shop to learn more about A Rainbow of Shapes.

Sometimes a children’s book begins with a story that has nothing to do with becoming an author—and everything to do with being a mom.

A Rainbow of Shapes began with my son.

The moment that started it

In kindergarten, I learned that my son was color deficient.

Learning that was heartbreaking for me as his mom. I wanted to help him learn without making him feel like there was something wrong with the way he saw the world.

I wasn’t looking for a business idea. I wasn’t trying to create a product.

I was trying to help my child.

I found a simple way to help him learn colors

Once he could read, I taught him to read the names printed on his crayons and markers.

If he saw a color differently, he could still learn what that color was called.

I also taught him shapes.

And I started thinking about how colors and shapes could come together through creativity and play.

Then the little moments started making sense

There was the red hammer his dad asked him to bring—and he never brought it.

There was the day he told me, “My mom has green hair like my teacher.” My hair was blonde.

There was the school artwork where he looked at a pink sky and told me, “What you mean mom look its pink in the sky.”

Once we understood that he was seeing colors differently, our family started asking a different question:

“What color do you see?”

That simple question became an important part of how we understood his experience.

Creating gave me something positive to focus on

As a mom, I could have spent all my energy focusing on the problem.

Instead, creating gave me something purposeful to build.

It gave me happy thoughts instead of constantly thinking, “My son has this issue.”

I wanted to create something that could help my son and other moms and children who might be going through something similar.

A Rainbow of Shapes was created in 2008

That idea became A Rainbow of Shapes in 2008.

The book brought together the things I had been thinking about: primary colors, shapes, creativity, imagination, and learning through play.

The original purpose is captured in the wording on the back of the book:

“An imaginative approach to help children with color deficiencies by using the primary colors of the rainbow in various shapes.”

That sentence still says exactly what I wanted the book to do.

It wasn’t about telling my son what he should see

The book wasn’t created as a medical resource.

It came from a mother trying to find a creative way to help her child learn.

I didn’t want my son to feel that his way of seeing the world made him wrong.

I wanted learning to have another doorway.

And the idea grew beyond the book

The book was one part of the story.

The larger idea was always about giving children opportunities to discover, imagine, learn, and create.

Years later, that idea became the foundation for bringing KidsWonderArt back.

Today, A Rainbow of Shapes is still at the center of that story—and the original idea is still important to me.

If you’re here because of the book

If the story behind A Rainbow of Shapes speaks to you, you can take a closer look at the book through the Shop page on this site.

Visit the Shop to learn more about A Rainbow of Shapes.

You can also explore the full KidsWonderArt story or visit Creativity & Learning for simple activities inspired by the original idea.

Shapes are everywhere—and you don’t need a worksheet to turn them into a fun learning adventure.

If you’re looking for easy shape activities for a preschooler, start with what you already have. A toy, a plate, a book, a box, or a few crayons can become part of the activity.

1. Go on a shape hunt

Pick one shape and see how many examples your child can find.

Try a circle first. Look for plates, clocks, lids, or wheels. Then try squares, rectangles, triangles, ovals, or diamonds.

Make it a game instead of a test: “Can you find one?” becomes “Can you find five?”

2. Shape and color match

Combine two skills by giving your child a color and a shape to find.

Ask for a red circle, a blue square, or a yellow triangle. If you don’t have the exact combination nearby, draw one together.

You’re practicing shape recognition and color recognition at the same time—and your child gets to move, search, and make choices.

3. Build a picture from shapes

Draw a few simple shapes on paper and let your child turn them into something.

A circle might become a sun. A triangle could become a roof. Rectangles can become doors, windows, or buildings.

There is no single right answer. That’s what makes this one so good for imagination.

4. Find shapes around the house

Turn an ordinary room into a shape-learning game.

• Circle: plate or clock
• Rectangle: book or door
• Square: tile or block
• Oval: mirror or bowl
• Triangle: a sign or toy

Walk around together and ask, “What shape do you see?”

5. Make shapes with crayons

Give your child a few crayons and ask them to draw one circle, one square, one triangle, and one rectangle.

Then let them add details and turn those shapes into a picture.

This is where learning and creativity meet. The shapes don’t have to be perfect.

6. Let your child become the shape teacher

Once your child knows a few shapes, switch roles.

Point to an object and ask, “What shape is this?” Then let your child find another object with the same shape and teach it back to you.

Children often love being the expert. And when they explain something to you, you get to hear what they understand.

7. Try a shape-and-color challenge

Give your child a quick challenge:

• Find a circle.
• Find a square.
• Find a triangle.
• Find a rectangle.
• Find an oval.
• Find a diamond.

Then ask which shape was easiest to find and which one was hardest.

You can also turn this into a printable-style activity with the FREE Pumpkin Shape Hunt.

The trick is not making it feel like work

Young children don’t need every activity to have a worksheet, a score, or a perfect finished product.

Sometimes the most useful thing we can do is give them something interesting to notice and let them explore it.

Find a shape. Name it. Draw it. Turn it into something.

That’s learning, too.

Why shapes have always mattered to me

Shapes became part of my son’s learning journey when I was looking for ways to help him learn colors through a different approach.

That experience eventually became A Rainbow of Shapes in 2008.

The book brought together colors and shapes with imagination and creativity—the same idea I still want to encourage through KidsWonderArt.

For more simple ideas, visit Creativity & Learning, or read the story behind A Rainbow of Shapes.

Sometimes motherhood hands you a problem you never expected—and somehow, in trying to help your child, you discover something you didn’t know was waiting inside you.

I never set out to create a children’s book.

I was simply a mom trying to help her son.

It started with something heartbreaking

In kindergarten, I learned that my son was color deficient.

Learning that was heartbreaking for me as his mom. I kept thinking about how I could help him learn without making him feel like there was something wrong with the way he saw the world.

I wasn’t looking to become an author. I wasn’t building a business. I was trying to find a way to help my child.

I started with what I knew

Once he could read, I taught him to read the names printed on his crayons and markers. That gave him a way to learn what colors were called, even when he was seeing them differently.

I also taught him shapes.

Then I started putting ideas together.

Colors. Shapes. Creating. Learning.

Little by little, something began to take shape.

Creating changed the way I felt

This part is just as important to me as the book itself.

Thinking about my son’s color deficiency could leave me focused on the problem. Creating something purposeful gave me somewhere else to put those feelings.

It gave me happy thoughts.

Instead of constantly thinking, “My son has this issue,” I could think, “What can I create that might help?”

That question changed everything.

A book I never planned to write

In 2008, that creative idea became A Rainbow of Shapes.

I wanted something that brought colors and shapes together in an imaginative way. Something purposeful. Something that could help my son and potentially help other moms and children who were going through something similar.

The wording on the back of the book still captures the original purpose:

“An imaginative approach to help children with color deficiencies by using the primary colors of the rainbow in various shapes.”

It wasn’t a medical book.

It was a mom’s creative response to a difficult moment.

And then KidsWonderArt came back around

The book was one part of the story.

The bigger idea was always about children discovering, imagining, learning, and creating.

Years later, that same idea became the foundation for bringing KidsWonderArt back.

What started with one mom trying to help her son became something I could share with other families, parents, grandparents, teachers, and little artists.

What motherhood taught me

I used to think that helping my child meant finding the right answer.

Sometimes it means finding another way to ask the question.

Sometimes it means noticing what your child is showing you.

And sometimes, unexpectedly, it means creating something you never planned to create.

That’s one of the things I love most about motherhood. You can start out simply trying to get through one moment, and that moment can quietly lead you somewhere completely unexpected.

The thing I almost missed

If I had only focused on the difficult part of that experience, I might never have created the book.

Instead, I found something purposeful to build from it.

And that is a lesson I still carry with me:

You don’t always get to choose what motherhood puts in your path. But sometimes you get to choose what you create from it.

Read more about the story behind A Rainbow of Shapes, or explore the Creativity & Learning section for simple ideas inspired by that original vision.

Sometimes the best way to help a child learn is to stop making learning feel like work.

When my sons were little, I learned pretty quickly that children don’t all learn the same way.

With my son who was color deficient, I had an especially personal reason to think about how learning could work differently. I wanted to help him without making him feel like something was wrong with him.

I didn’t want learning to become another source of frustration

Once he could read, I taught him to read the color names printed on his crayons and markers. If he saw a color differently, he could still learn what that color was called.

But I didn’t want colors to become something he simply had to memorize.

I wanted him to have a chance to look, explore, make choices, and create.

Shapes gave us another way in

I also taught him shapes.

Shapes were something he could recognize, draw, combine, and turn into something of his own. That made learning feel less like sitting down to get an answer right and more like figuring something out.

And once creativity entered the picture, something changed for me, too.

Creating helped me as much as it helped him

Learning that my son was color deficient had been heartbreaking for me as his mom.

Creating something purposeful gave me a positive place to put those feelings. Instead of constantly thinking, “My son has this issue,” I could think about what I could create to help him.

That shift mattered.

Play gave us room to learn

Through play, learning didn’t have to happen in one particular order.

We could:

• notice colors in everyday life
• match colors and objects
• practice shapes
• draw and create
• ask questions
• try again when something didn’t work

There was no need for every activity to feel like a test.

That idea stayed with me

In 2008, my experience with my son inspired me to create A Rainbow of Shapes.

The book brought together colors, shapes, creativity, and play because those were the kinds of things I wanted learning to feel like.

The exact idea on the back of the book still says it best:

“An imaginative approach to help children with color deficiencies by using the primary colors of the rainbow in various shapes.”

The book wasn’t meant to be a medical resource. It came from a mom trying to find a creative way to help her child learn.

You don’t need a perfect activity

If you’re teaching a preschooler colors or shapes, start with what you already have.

A box of crayons. A few toys. Things around the house. A walk outside.

Ask questions. Let your child look. Let them tell you what they notice. Let them make something.

Sometimes a five-minute game can teach more than we expect.

You can try the FREE 5-Minute Color Hunt for a simple way to turn color learning into play.

What I learned as a mom

I started out wanting to help my son learn colors.

What I learned along the way was bigger: children don’t need every learning moment to look like school.

Sometimes they need room to discover.

Sometimes they need another way in.

And sometimes, they just need permission to play.

That’s still at the heart of what I want KidsWonderArt to encourage: discover, imagine, learn, and create.

Explore more simple activities in Creativity & Learning, or read the story behind A Rainbow of Shapes.

Learning colors doesn’t have to feel like a lesson. Some of the best learning happens when kids are simply looking, moving, matching, and creating.

If you’re trying to help a preschooler learn colors, you don’t need a complicated curriculum or a pile of worksheets. You can turn things you already have around the house into little learning opportunities.

1. Start with the colors you see every day

Point out colors during ordinary moments.

“Look at that red cup.”
“Can you find something blue?”
“What color is your shirt?”

The goal isn’t to turn every moment into a quiz. It’s simply to help children notice colors in the world around them.

2. Let crayons do some of the teaching

Crayons make a simple color-learning tool because children can see, say, match, and create all at once.

Ask your child to find a red crayon and then find something nearby that is red. Try another color. Then let them draw whatever they want with it.

That last part matters. The activity doesn’t have to end with a correct answer. Letting children create gives them a reason to keep exploring.

3. Go on a color hunt

Pick one color and see how many things your child can find.

Try:

• Find 3 red things.
• Find 2 yellow things.
• Find 1 blue thing.

You can do this in the house, outside, in a classroom, or even while waiting somewhere.

For an easy version you can use right away, check out the FREE 5-Minute Color Hunt.

4. Match colors to shapes

Now add shapes to the mix.

Ask your child to find a red circle, a blue square, or a yellow triangle. You can draw the shapes yourself or use objects you already have.

This turns one learning idea into two: recognizing colors and recognizing shapes.

5. Let the child become the teacher

This is one of my favorites.

Give your child a crayon or object and ask them to tell you what color it is. Then ask them to find something else that matches.

Children often enjoy being the one who knows the answer. It also gives you a chance to listen to how they are thinking rather than simply telling them what to do.

The best part? It doesn’t have to be perfect.

When children learn through play, there is room for curiosity, mistakes, questions, and imagination.

And that’s really the point.

Learning colors can be about discovering—not just memorizing.

If you’d like another simple activity, try the FREE Pumpkin Shape Hunt for a playful combination of shapes and colors.

A little idea can become a bigger creative habit

My own experience teaching my son colors in a different way eventually inspired A Rainbow of Shapes in 2008.

That book began with a difficult moment as a mom, but the bigger lesson stayed with me: children can learn in different ways, and sometimes play gives us a wonderful place to start.

For more simple activities and creative learning ideas, visit Creativity & Learning.

And if you’re curious about where all of this began, you can read the story behind A Rainbow of Shapes.

Sometimes the moments that make no sense at the time become the moments you understand most clearly later.

Before I knew my son was color deficient, there were little things that happened that I simply didn’t understand.

Looking back now, I can see them differently.

The red hammer

His dad is an electrician, and one day he asked our son to bring him the red hammer.

Our son never came back with it.

At the time, we thought maybe he wasn’t listening. Maybe he was busy doing something else.

After we learned that he was seeing colors differently, we looked at each other and said:

“Makes sense that I never got the red hammer.”

That little moment suddenly made sense.

My green hair

Another time, my son looked at me and said:

“My mom has green hair like my teacher.”

My hair was blonde.

He was seeing it as green.

At the time, it was one of those comments that makes a mom stop and wonder what in the world her child is thinking.

Once we understood that he saw colors differently, I realized he wasn’t making it up. He was telling me what he actually saw.

The pink sky

One day, my son made a picture at school. There was a person on the page and the sky was pink.

I was working, and his great-aunt was watching him. When I asked why the sky was pink, he looked at me and said:

“What you mean mom look its pink in the sky.”

I remember saying, “Ah no baby, the sky is blue.”

We eventually named that artwork THE SUPER NANNY. His great-aunt had been watching him, and they used to do all kinds of crazy things together.

I had the artwork professionally framed, and it still hangs in my home office.

We started asking a different question

Those moments changed something for our family.

Instead of automatically saying, “That’s red,” or “The sky is blue,” we started asking:

“What color do you see?”

That became our way of understanding his experience instead of assuming that he was seeing what we were seeing.

Learning the names helped

Once he could read, I taught him to read the color names printed on his crayons and markers.

That gave him another way to learn colors. He could see a color differently and still learn what that color was called.

I also taught him shapes, and I encouraged him to learn through creating.

What I didn’t know then

I didn’t know that these little moments would eventually become part of the reason I created a children’s activity book.

In 2008, I created A Rainbow of Shapes.

The book came from a difficult moment in my life as a mom, but creating it gave me something purposeful and positive to focus on. I wanted to help my son—and other moms and children who might be going through something similar.

It wasn’t about telling him that what he saw was wrong.

It was about finding another way to help him learn.

Years later, I still think about those moments

My son grew up. He still sees some colors differently, but he knows what those colors are supposed to be.

And our family still asks him what he sees.

Something that started as a collection of confusing little moments became one of the most meaningful lessons of my life as a mom:

Sometimes you understand your child better when you stop assuming they see the world the way you do.

Read more about the story behind A Rainbow of Shapes: The KidsWonderArt Story.

Explore simple creative learning activities: Creativity & Learning.

Sometimes motherhood means learning to see the world from your child’s point of view.

When I first learned that my son was color deficient, I had a lot to process.

It was heartbreaking for me as his mom. I wasn’t looking for a medical lesson. I was looking for a way to help my son learn without making him feel like there was something wrong with him.

I started by listening to what he saw

Once we understood that he was seeing colors differently, some of the little moments from everyday life suddenly made sense.

His dad would ask him to bring the red hammer. He never brought it. We had thought maybe he wasn’t listening. After we understood what was happening, we looked at each other and said, “Makes sense that I never got the red hammer.”

Then there was the day my son told me, “my mom has green hair like my teacher.”

My hair was blonde. He was seeing it as green.

Those moments taught us something simple but important: before telling him what color something was supposed to be, we could ask him what he saw.

I found a simple way to help him learn colors

Once he could read, I taught him to read the names printed on his crayons and markers.

That gave him another way to learn. Even if he was seeing a color differently, he could learn what that color was called.

I also taught him shapes and encouraged him to create.

And creating helped me, too

At the time, I was trying to figure out how to help my son while dealing with my own feelings. Creating something purposeful gave me a positive place to put those feelings.

Instead of constantly thinking, “My son has this issue,” I could focus on making something that might actually help him—and other moms and children who were going through something similar.

I stopped trying to make his experience fit mine

That was probably one of the biggest things I learned.

My son wasn’t experiencing color the way I did. That didn’t mean he couldn’t learn. It meant we sometimes needed a different way to get there.

So our family started asking him what he saw before telling him what we thought he should see.

That became part of how we understood his world.

That experience became A Rainbow of Shapes

In 2008, I created A Rainbow of Shapes.

The book wasn’t created as a medical resource. It came from a mom who wanted to help her child learn colors and shapes in a way that felt positive, imaginative, and fun.

The original back-cover description says:

“An imaginative approach to help children with color deficiencies by using the primary colors of the rainbow in various shapes.”

That is the heart of the book.

Looking back, I think the bigger lesson was that helping a child doesn’t always mean finding a way to make them see things the way you do.

Sometimes it means listening first, finding another way to teach, and giving them room to learn in their own way.

Want to read the full story behind the book? Read the KidsWonderArt Story.

Looking for simple ways for children to learn through play? Visit Creativity & Learning.

What I learned as a mom when I discovered my son was color deficient.

In kindergarten, I learned that my son was color deficient.

Learning that was heartbreaking for me as his mom. I kept thinking about what this might mean for him and how I could help him learn without making him feel like there was something wrong with the way he saw the world.

I needed to find a way to help him learn

Once he could read, I found something simple that helped us: I taught him to read the names printed on his crayons and markers.

That gave him a way to learn what colors were called even when he was seeing them differently. If he was looking at a color and seeing something different from what I expected, he could read the name and learn what that color was supposed to be.

I also taught him shapes and encouraged him to learn through creating.

Then the little things started making sense

Before we understood that he was color deficient, there were moments that left us confused.

His dad is an electrician. One day he asked our son to bring him the red hammer. Our son never came back with it. We thought maybe he wasn’t listening.

After we learned about his color deficiency, we looked at each other and said, “Makes sense that I never got the red hammer.”

There was another time when my son told me, “my mom has green hair like my teacher.” My hair was blonde. He was seeing it as green.

Those moments changed the way our family thought about color. We started asking him what he saw before telling him what we expected him to see.

Creating helped me, too

There was something I didn’t expect in all of this. Creating gave me something purposeful to focus on. Instead of constantly thinking, “My son has this issue,” I could put those feelings into something positive.

I wanted to create something that could help my son and other moms and children who were dealing with color deficiency.

That idea became A Rainbow of Shapes

In 2008, I created A Rainbow of Shapes.

The book brought together colors and shapes in an imaginative, approachable way. It wasn’t meant to be a medical book. It came from a mom trying to help her child learn.

The original back-cover description says:

“An imaginative approach to help children with color deficiencies by using the primary colors of the rainbow in various shapes.”

That is still the heart of why I created it.

What I learned as a mom

My son’s color deficiency changed the way our family looked at something as ordinary as color.

More importantly, it taught me that sometimes helping a child doesn’t mean changing the way they see something. Sometimes it means finding another way to help them understand it.

That small idea from 2008 became a book—and eventually became part of the story behind KidsWonderArt.

Read the full story behind A Rainbow of Shapes: KidsWonderArt Story

Looking for a simple color activity? Visit Creativity & Learning for free activities for little learners.

Being a mom to young adult sons is quite the adventure. At 22 and 24, they’re fully grown but still very much my kids, and navigating their lives is truly a hoot. They’re complete opposites, yet each somehow inherited the most challenging traits from both me and their father—so yes, the struggle is real. They’re still finishing their college degrees and have hobbies I never would’ve imagined affording at their age. When I was their age, I was living on my own and working full time. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if those fancy hobbies would survive a rent payment. I honestly struggle to understand how young adults manage life these days… or is this all just another side effect of social media?