Colors

I think I say every theme is a favorite theme, but I really do love teaching about colors! My main objective is to teach them the 3 primary colors, and then which ones to mix to make secondary colors. We mix colors over and over, then talk about it all year, so I hope it sticks!

Dramatic Play

Paint Store










This was their first time with the cash register and they loved it, so of course there were tears and sharing issues too. One rule I have with sharing is that "part of sharing is waiting." The kids often accuse a child of not sharing, really meaning that the other child won't hand over what they want when they want it, which isn't a realistic expectation. So I remind them that part of sharing is waiting for our friend to finish, and I help them ask their friend, "can I use that when you're done?" After they've asked, I encourage them to find something else to do while they wait, and I also remind the friend with the sought-after toy, that someone is waiting for a turn and to let them know when they're done. I also reminded them it would be out for 4 days, so there'd be plenty of times for turns. Sure enough, by day 3, there was no more fighting over it because it wasn't new anymore.

The kids loved being the store employees and the customers. The customers, especially, had a fun time "painting" every surface of the preschool with their paint cans and brushes. There was a lot of great social play, conversation, and problem solving. They also learned to clean up after themselves.


Blocks

Mega Blocks


Waffle Blocks


Duplo Legos for 2 days

Art

Easel painting with primary colors


Dot markers


White slime and markers (I make my slime thick enough that they can color it-and we use my dried up markers bin, since they won't color on paper, but will color on slime, and they can't ruin dried up markers) They can also choose to play with the slime if they don't want to color, or as they color it.
     




Glue and jello shakers. It's a messy art and requires me nearby to help dump the used powder back into jars, but it's a preschool favorite, and makes the room smell so good!


Small Manipulatives

Color folder games




Paint chip clothespin matching, clothespin horse color matching






Colored links


Pom poms and tweezers with rainbow cards, and pom poms with tubes to drop them through
     
Writing Table

Colored pens

Color word stickers


Rainbow scratch paper


ABC Stickers

Snack

We had rainbow goldfish crackers, and sorted the by color before we ate them. I forget how little they are, but after being shown what to do, they could do it!

We made painted toast. We used colored milk, and brush a little onto white bread with a pastry brush to color it (too much will be soggy). We used primary colors so they could see the results of mixing them.


We made smoothies with every color of the rainbow. I had the frozen fruit divided in bowls by color, and they each got to add a piece of each one, then we blended it to see what color it made in the end. We used strawberries, a banana, green grapes, peaches, blueberries, and purple grapes. I was surprised how few kids would even taste it. I ask them to at least try everything, then only eat it if they like it. Most at least tried it, but some wouldn't even do that.

Outside

The sensory table had white containers, then bottles of water in primary colors. They could mix the colors in the white bowls and see what colors they made, then dump them out and try again. I refilled them each day, so they got plenty of turns to mix the colored water.
     

We did sheet spraying, with spray bottles of colored water. It's a great small motor skill because it uses their little muscles to spray, plus they're mixing colors again.


Large Group

Our new songs this week are Scat the Cat, Mitch the Fish, Colors in a Pot, and Sing a Rainbow

Our word of the week is Primary Colors

Day 1, we watched this great Primary Color video from Sesame Street.

We read White Rabbit's Color Book. Then we set up our experiment. We placed color water in 6 clear jars, 2 for each primary color. Then we paired them together with a paper towel leading out of each one, into another jar. They were paired to mix the primary colors to mix. So, red and blue, red and yellow, and yellow and blue.
We also put the primary color cards on the wall.


Day 2, we checked our paper towels and found that the colored water spread up the paper towels and dripped into the empty jars, mixing the primary colors to make the secondary colors.
We read Mouse Paint. We added the secondary color cards to the wall like a color wheel. We used a color dice to play a color sorting game.


Day 3, we read Freight Train and worked on sorting by sorting buttons and bugs by the colors of the train cars.


Day 4, we read Elmer the Elephant, then made an Elmer picture. They had an elephant picture, and painted on tissue paper colored squares by using liquid starch. They turned out so great!

Small Group

Week 1, my group worked with me making a play doh color wheel. We mixed the primary colors together. It's hard work at this age, and I had kids telling me they couldn't do it, but I remind them they can if they try, and we worked those colors together until they mixed.
The other group played with color puzzles.


Week 2, my group mixed primary paint colors to make secondary colors.
The other group colored in their journals about their favorite colors, I added their words as they finished coloring.

Wild Animals

At the request of some students who wanted to learn about bats, we did focus on bats the first day, then the rest of the weeks were focusing on a variety of wild animals, so we could hopefully touch on most everyone's favorites!

Dramatic Play
Week 1: bat cave. It wasn't super fancy, but a tent made a good cave. I have some bat posters I got at a teaching conference years ago, and finally got to use! I also hung bats from the tent ceiling (that didn't last-they were torn down and played with right away!) and put some other creepy crawly animals in the cave, like scorpions, snakes, and spiders. They enjoyed playing in here the 2 days it was up, but by the end of the 2nd day, I was ready for it to be done. They just did less playing and imagining they were bats, and more rough housing and knocking the tent over. It's a good 2 day center.



Week 2: Zoo. They loved this! I kinda set up cages with blocks, but they had to improvise and expand them a lot. I'm not sure why, but I hadn't expected them to want to pretend to the animals as much as they did. The zookeepers were super busy, rebuilding cages, chasing down their escaped animals and getting them back into their cages, and also feeding their hungry animals. They had a great time. They often lacked visitors to the zoo, since so many were animals, so I had to buy a lot of tickets and visit often. The stuffed animals were fun, but they liked the animal costumes and being the animals the most.






Blocks
Mini-zoo with small animals, then the second week, the zoo expanded into the blocks area.

I also had several animal puzzles and games on the shelf that got played with a lot. They especially loved playing animal headbands! It was hilarious to watch. They'd be giving someone clues, and another kid would just walk up and yell to them what animal they were. We're still catching on to asking questions and giving clues I guess!


Art

Bubble wrap roller painting. This was a fun new painting experience they really liked!


Play dough and animal cutters


Q-tip painting



Watercolors

Small Manipulatives

File folder games



ABC animal foam puzzles


Animal puzzles


Flat marbles and animal ABC pages from here


Animal lacing cards


Magnet board: pattern blocks with animal cards


Writing
Animal stickers

Outside
We finally have snow! I filled the colored water bottles each day, and they love going out and coloring and painting the snow. They especially like mixing colors with each other to make new colors. I just use old empty bottles like syrup, shampoo, ketchup, honey, etc. I found the ketchup bottles were a little harder for them to use, but they were able to do it if they squeezed hard enough.

Large Group
We learned 2 new songs, Going to the Zoo by Raffi, and The Elephant Song by Dr. Jean. And we learned the word "wild."
Day 1, we read Stellaluna. We learned about bats by watching a youtube video about them. I was most impressed that they eat so many bugs! I'm sure the kids only heard the part about vampire bats that feed off animals, and didn't pay attention to much else!
Day 2, we made a giant venn diagram on the floor, and sorted our toy animals by wild, domestic, or both.

Day 3, we read about and learned the life cycle of a frog.
Day 4, we read about animal habitats, then watched this Sesame Street clip about habitats. It doesn't get much better than Lin Manuel Miranda rapping. Then we took the toy animals, and sorted them into habitats by placing them by a picture of their home.

Small Group
We don't have Miss Kim coming anymore, with her new work schedule, so they are learning to work independently in one group, while another group works with me. It's going quite well!
One group drew and wrote in their journals about their favorite animal, while my group was practicing cutting a zoo animal wheel thing. The finished product wasn't a big deal, but practicing cutting was!
The next week, my group practiced numerals and counting with animal magnets. The other group worked on an ABC animal puzzle together.