My goal with this theme was not to teach colors (they already know them), but to teach about mixing primary colors to make secondary colors, and to also introduce sorting (since sorting by color is usually the easiest). I definitely think we accomplished those 2 goals!
Dramatic Play: Paint Store
Thank goodness for college lesson plans, because I wasn't sure what to do here. The paint store was tons of fun. They loved working there (cash register is ALWAYS a hit and never gets old), and they loved painting! They "painted" the whole room over and over again and had a great time doing it.
Blocks: Mega Blocks and Legos
They're colorful, right?
Art:
Painting with primary colors. Great introduction to mixing colors and discovering what they do on their own. Didn't snap pictures, but we had some great art!
Gelatin molds. SO FUN! We called these "breast implants" in college.
It's just Knox Gelatin (3/4 cup boiling water to each packet, plus a little butter spray in each mold to make sure they come out) in bowls and various containers (the cool whip ones were great). The kids each had 2 small cups (old spice containers) with colored water (primaries only, for mixing) and eye droppers (generously donated, and also collected from my baby's Vitamin D drops). This was a HUGE SUCCESS! Some kids stayed here the whole hour. It starts with just squirting the water in, but pretty soon they have them torn to pieces and they're just loving rubbing their hands in it. What a FUN sensory experience and one we're going to have to repeat, they loved it so much. I only had 6 containers, but all 9 kids started the day doing it and no one complained when I asked them to scoot to add more chairs and to share their gelatin. They were awesome at sharing.
Colored bubble paint. Fail. It looks awesome on this pin, but not so awesome in our class. We tried it 2 ways, one with blowing a straw into the bin of colored bubbles and placing the paper on it to make prints. It's fun, but I guess I didn't use enough color. The kids preferred blowing them anyway. They had fun, and got some color on their papers, but barely. It ended up just being very messy, with bubble solution inside. (oh, and I did try it the night before and knew it wasn't going to be great, but still did it) Bubbles are better for outside!
Elmer the Elephant tissue paper painting. I had this fun book Elmer's Colors for the kids at the art table, then they got to choose one of 2 elephants, and then use liquid starch to paint colorful squares to their elephant. I rarely do art that seems "crafty" like this one did, with an already-planned end result (colorful elephant), but it went great with our theme, and tied in literacy. I sat at the table and read the book over and over again as they painted, and that got the kids bringing more books over to read and I spent almost 30 of the first 60 minutes just reading out loud as they painted or listened.
Manipulatives:
Color puzzles
Color book with coordinating CD
Paint chips with clothespins (not really interested)
Color sorting file folder games (not interested)
Colored horses with clothespin legs (loved this)
Pom Pom rainbows (really liked)
Pom Pom drop (fun and different way to sort, seemed to like it)
I liked the clothespin activities because of the great fine motor-building activity that it is, but I think that's what got them frustrated. They really do have a hard time opening them and would really only try with me helping, showing how, and encouraging. It's surprising to us how hard a task that is for little fingers (which is what makes it great for strengthening those tiny muscles).
Reading Center:
SO MANY great books about colors and mixing them.
Outside:
They are loving the swing set and some never leave it!
We also had colored water to mix in the water table on day 1. They had it all mixed to brown within a few minutes (which was the plan) and had fun.
Day 2, I had the primary colors in squeeze bottles and soap containers to make it take a little longer and it did! They loved mixing the colors and showing me what they made.
We also had colored sheet spraying both days, with primary colors in squirt bottles that they coud spray on a white sheet.
Week 2 we had rainbow rice in the sensory table and they loved that too! I made the colored rice by mixing 6-8 cups of rice in a bag with a few drops of food coloring and 2-3 tablespoons of rubbing alcohol. Once all the colors dried, I mixed them all together. This was really popular and we'll be keeping it out next week too.
Snacks:
Rainbow goldfish (to sort then eat)
Painted toast (milk with red and blue food coloring). They each got to "paint" a little on their bread with a pastry brush and they all learned how to make purple.
Smoothies. We mixed together a lot of different colors of fruit in our smoothie and made guesses what colors it would make. The kale won out and we had green smoothies!
Large Group:
Songs:
Color Soup
(not sure of the tune name)
Take some cherries, put 'em in the pot. Stir it, stir it, stir it a lot!
Pour it out and what will it be?
The prettiest red you ever did see!
(repeat with orange, lemon, lime, blueberries, grapes)
Red, and orange and yellow and green,
Blue and purple colors are seen,
Mix them together and what will it be?
The prettiest rainbow you ever did see!
Scat the Cat
(file folder has cat cut out, with colored papers inside)
I'm Scat the Cat, I'm a happy cat,
If you don't like my color, you can change it like that! (pull out colored paper to change cat)
Mitch the Fish
(file folder with fish cut out, and colored papers inside)
I'm Mitch the fish, I can swim and I can swish,
I can change my color, if you wish!
Week one, we tried this paper towel experiment that taught us about absorption, and mixed our colors! They loved coming back Thursday to see them all mixed together.
Week two, we did another experiment with celery to watch it absorb colored water. It wasn't as obvious as the first experiment, but we still made awesome predictions and got to check out our results, and see where the colored water had climbed the celery.
We also made patterns, read great books, and sang songs. This is such a singing group (YAY!) so we've had lots of fun singing. They are also LOVING their classroom jobs and helping with that, and it's making it easier to have only some kids help hold song props too. They could not handle taking turns with songs last year. They all needed a song prop, and are doing great this year at just singing when they're not helping.
Small Group: Big Success!
The first 2 weeks were awesome and I am SO excited about this! Thank you 100 times for being willing to help, because we are doing great things in small group! I loved being with just 4 kids to do an activity. I could level it to each group (some we just mixed colors, and others we found the letters in the color names, etc.).
In my groups, we mixed colors.
Week 1, were the playdough color wheels (you can get primary color play dough at Dollar Tree. Love it.
Week 2, we mixed colors with paint. Some were patient and stayed with me, and other had interesting color mixing, but we all learned through fun :)
In the other groups, they sorted and mixed.
Week 1, moms read Freight Train and helped the kids order their train, then sort objects by color. Awesome math skill.
I also put this in the block area, week 2, since they loved the train so much. They sorted and played!
Week 2, moms helped kids make new crayons by mixing up our old ones. I didn't get any pictures, but you should have seen your kids' creations come home. They turned out great a colorful and are fun to color with! It was a great way to use up last year's broken crayons.
SUCH A FUN WEEK!!! SO much great learning in science, math, art, and literacy. Loved it.
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