Sometimes the biggest ideas begin with a mom simply trying to help her child.

The Story Behind A Rainbow of Shapes

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. I didn’t want him to feel like there was something wrong with the way he saw the world. I wanted to find a way to make learning feel positive.

Once he could read, I found a simple way to help him learn colors: I taught him to read the names printed on his crayons. If he saw a color differently, he could still learn what that color was called. I also taught him shapes and encouraged him to learn through creating.

And something unexpected happened for me, too. Creating gave me something purposeful and gave me happy thoughts instead of constantly focusing on, “My son has this issue.” What began as a way to help my son became something positive that I could create for him—and for other children and moms who might be going through something similar.

Then the little moments started making sense.

There were things that had seemed funny or confusing before we understood what was happening.

His dad, who is an electrician, would ask him to bring him the red hammer. He never came back with it. We thought maybe he wasn’t listening.

Once we understood that he was seeing colors differently, we looked at each other and said, “Makes sense that I never got the red hammer.”

There were other moments, too. He once told me that I had green hair. My hair was blonde. To him, though, he was seeing green.

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

A small idea became a book.

In 2008, that experience inspired me to create A Rainbow of Shapes.

I wanted to create something purposeful that brought colors and shapes together in a way that felt imaginative, approachable, and fun. What began with my son’s color deficiency became a children’s activity book designed to help children learn through colors, shapes, creativity, and play.

What the book was created to do

On the back of the original book, I wrote:

“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 a child that what they saw was wrong. It was about finding a creative way to help them learn.

And the story didn’t end with the book.

Years later, the same love of creativity, learning, and giving children room to explore became the foundation for KidsWonderArt.

What started with one little boy, one mom, and a hard moment in 2008 became something purposeful that continued to grow.

Today, KidsWonderArt is about encouraging children to discover, imagine, learn, and create—while remembering that there isn’t always just one way to learn something.