Category: Preschool

Tot-School Purple Day

Read:  

Song: 

WE LOVE PURPLE
Tune: “Three Blind Mice”

We love purple, we love purple.
Yes, we do. Yes, we do.
Purple grapes and eggplant,
Purple plums and grape juice,
Just for me, just for you.
–Heather McPhail

Color Recognition:  Show the child 3 cars or toys (be sure one is purple).  Have the child point to the purple car. (we used bows today)

Word Recognition:  Print the Purple paper to use with do-a-dot markers. 

Discuss: 

  • What is something purple? Plum, violets, jam, etc…
  • “I spy something purple…”

Snack:  Blackberry Smoothie, Grape juice, Plums, Grapes, Cabbage, Blackberries, Grape Jelly, Purple Jello

Blackberry Smoothie

Materials: 

  • 1 Cup Blackberries
  • 1 frozen banana
  • 1 Cup almond milk (or coconut milk)

Directions: 

  1. Blend the berries in a blender, scrape the sides.
  2. Add the banana and blend more, scrape the sides.
  3. Add the milk and blend until smooth.

Purple Playdough

Get out any purple play dough and purple play dough toys and tools. Show the child how to use the tools.

Purple Mixed Media Collage

Materials: any drawing materials that you have that are PURPLE (crayons, markers, colored pencil), white and purple paper, scissors, glue

Description: Child used drawing materials on the white paper. Then she will cut small pieces of her paper and glue them all onto the purple paper.

Skills Targeted: teach your tot to follow directions, be creative, and fine motor skills.

Play with Purple Balloon

This girl loves to play with balloons. Today we played with a purple dancing scarf instead of a balloon.

PURPLE word and pictures

I found these Color Headers in the Target back to school clearance a few years ago.  She put the yellow pictures onto the PURPLE word.

Planting Purple Tulips

Materials:

  • Purple Construction Paper
  • Craft Sticks
  • Egg Carton

Directions:

  1. Cut tulip shapes from the paper and glue a craft stick to them.
  2. Turn the egg carton upside down and cut slits in each egg part.
  3. The child can plant the tulips in the different slits.
  4. Count how many tulips he planted.

Skills Targeted: teach your tot color recognition, teach your tot to follow directions

PURPLE Baby Bin

I made a Baby Bin filled with purple toys for my granddaughter to play with too.

Here are the links to posts for the individual colors that we learned:

Tot-School Green Day

Read:  

Song: 

THERE’S A COLOR WE ALL KNOW
Tune: “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”

There’s a color we all know,
G-R-E-E-N.
It’s the color that means “Go!”
G-R-E-E-N.
Oh, grass is green and lettuce is green,
Leaves and spinach and peas are green,
There’s a color we all know,
G-R-E-E-N
–Elizabeth Scofield

Color Recognition:  Show the child 3 cars or toys (be sure one is green).  Have the child point to the green car.

Word Recognition:  Print the green paper to use with do-a-dot markers. 

Discuss: 

  • What is something green? Frog, tree, grapes, etc…
  • “I spy something green…”

Snack:  Green Sugar Cookie, Grapes, Green Beans, Honeydew, Kiwi, Lettuce, Cucumber, Green Apple, Green Koolaid, Pickle

Green Playdough

Get out any green play dough and green play dough toys and tools. Show the child how to use the tools.

Green Mixed Media Collage

Materials: any drawing materials that you have that are GREEN (crayons, markers, colored pencil), white and green paper, scissors, glue

Description: Child used drawing materials on the white paper. Then she will cut small pieces of her paper and glue them all onto the green paper.

Skills Targeted: teach your tot to follow directions, be creative, and fine motor skills.

Play with Green Balloon

This girl loves to play with balloons, so I got out a green one for her to play with today.

GREEN word and pictures

I found these Color Headers in the Target back to school clearance a few years ago.  She put the yellow pictures onto the GREEN word.

Shopping for Green Food

Materials:

Directions:

  1. Put play food in a shopping basket.
  2. Have the child pick out all of the green foods and place them on her plate.

Skills Targeted: teach your tot color recognition, teach your tot to follow directions

GREEN Baby Bin

I made a Baby Bin filled with green toys for my granddaughter to play with too.

Here are the links to posts for the individual colors that we learned:

Tot-School Blue Day

Read:  

Song: 

WE LOVE BLUE
Tune: “Three Blind Mice”

We love blue. We love blue.
Yes, we do. Yes, we do.
We love the ocean and sky so blue.
We love blue ribbons and blue jeans, too.
We love blueberries, so good for you.

We love blue.
–Liz Ryerson

Color Recognition:  Show the child 3 cars or toys (be sure one is blue).  Have the child point to the blue car.

Word Recognition:  Print the Blue paper to use with do-a-dot markers. 

Discuss: 

  • What is something blue? Blueberries, train, jeans, etc…
  • “I spy something blue…”

Snack:  Blueberries, Blue Jello, Blue Popsicle, Blue Gatorade, Blue Chips, Blue Unicorn Pudding

Blue Playdough

Get out any blue play dough and blue play dough toys and tools. Show the child how to use the tools.

Blue Mixed Media Collage

Materials: any drawing materials that you have that are BLUE (crayons, markers, colored pencil), white and blue paper, scissors, glue

Description: Child used drawing materials on the white paper. Then she will cut small pieces of her paper and glue them all onto the blue paper.

Skills Targeted: teach your tot to follow directions, be creative, and fine motor skills.

Play with Blue Balloon

This girl loves to play with balloons, so I got out a blue one for her to play with today.

BLUE word and pictures

I found these Color Headers in the Target back to school clearance a few years ago.  She put the blue pictures onto the BLUE word.

Blue Fish Painting

Materials:

  • White paper
  • Blue paint
  • Paintbrush
  • Masking tape
  • Googly Eye

Directions:

  1. Use the masking tape to make the shape of a fish on the white paper.
  2. Let the child paint the whole paper blue.
  3. After it dries peel off the masking tape.
  4. Add a googly eye.  It looks like you have a blue fish swimming in blue water now.

Skills Targeted: teach your tot color recognition, teach your tot to follow directions

BLUE Baby Bin

I made a Baby Bin filled with blue toys for my granddaughter to play with too.

Here are the links to posts for the individual colors that we learned:

Tot-School Red Day

Read:  

Song: 

I LOVE RED
Tune: “Three Blind Mice”

I love red, I love red.
That’s what I said, that’s what I said.
Firetrucks, wagons and strawberries piled high.
Stop signs, hearts and pizza pies.
Roses, tomatoes and apples, oh my.
I love red.
That’s what I said.
–Jean Warren

Color Recognition:  Show the child 3 cars or toys (be sure one is red).  Have the child point to the red car.

Word Recognition:  Print the Red paper to use with do-a-dot markers. 

Discuss: 

  • What is something red?  Apples, fire trucks, ladybugs, etc…
  • “I spy something red…”

Snack:  Strawberries, Red Apples, Red Juice, Red Jello, Radishes, Watermelon, Licorice, Pepperoni, Tomato

Red Playdough

Get out any red play dough and red play dough toys and tools. Show the child how to use the tools.

Red Mixed Media Collage

Materials: any drawing materials that you have that are RED (crayons, markers, colored pencil), white and red paper, scissors, glue

Description: Child used drawing materials on the white paper. Then she will cut small pieces of her paper and glue them all onto the red paper.

Skills Targeted: teach your tot to follow directions, be creative, and fine motor skills.

Play with Red Balloon

This girl loves to play with balloons, so I got out a red one for her to play with today.

RED word and pictures

I found these Color Headers in the Target back to school clearance a few years ago.  She put the red pictures onto the RED word.

Find the Red Ball

Materials: 3 red solo cups, a small red ball

Description: Place three cups with their opening down on the ground. Show your toddler the red ball and place it under one of the red cups. Move the cups around for a few seconds. Have your child see if they can follow the cup with the red ball and guess what cup it is under. Once you do this several times, allow your toddler to put the ball under the cup and try to trick you!

Skills Targeted: teach your tot color recognition, teach your tot to follow directions, teach your tot to play games, teach your tot to make guesses.

RED Baby Bin

I made a Baby Bin filled with red toys for my granddaughter to play with too.

Here are the links to posts for the individual colors that we learned:

Colors Tot-School

We are learning colors this month. We spent a couple days on each color, basically however long she needed to remember the new color. Storm is 2 years old, but you could use most of these activities for 3 and 4 year old children as well. I also have a few activities for babies; we included my granddaughter in some of the lessons. You can click the links at the bottom of this post to see what we did for each individual color.

Preschool Colors Book List

Tot-School Colors Book List

  • Red by Patricia M. Stockland
  • Yellow  by Patricia M. Stockland
  • Blue by Patricia M. Stockland
  • Green by Patricia M. Stockland
  • Purple  by Patricia M. Stockland
  • Orange by Patricia M. Stockland
  • Black  by Patricia M. Stockland
  • Brown  by Patricia M. Stockland
  • White by Patricia M. Stockland
  • Gray by Patricia M. Stockland
  • Pink by Patricia M. Stockland

Baby Colors Book List

Color Music Songs:

Color Activities:

  • I found these Color Headers in the Target back to school clearance a few years ago.  I punched out the pieces and laid them on the floor for her to match up. 

Color Busy Book:

I made Storm a busy book to match up colors. I printed all of these pages from free resources that I have found. Then I laminated them and 3 hole punched them and placed them in a binder. I cut out the matches and added velcro dots to them so that she could place them in the appropriate spot.

  • Paint Brush Colors

Here are the links to posts for the individual colors that we learned:

“The Wheels on the Bus” Tot School

“The Wheels on the Bus”

Color: Yellow

Shape: Circle

Number: 4

Letter: B

Verse 1: wheels go round

  • Look at the wheels on our van.
  • Show the wheels on the toy bus and push it on the floor to see them go round and round.
  • Roll a ball to go round and round.

Verse 2: people go up and down

  • Jump up and down.
  • Hold a baby doll up then down.

Verse 3: horn goes toot

  • Sit in the van and honk the horn.
  • Show child some other types of horns.

Verse 4: money goes clink

  • Drop coins in a jar or piggy bank to go clink.

Verse 5: wipers go swish

  • Wash the van window.
  • Turn on the window wipers in the van.

Book List:

  • Wheels on the Bus by Sylvie Kantorovitz Wickstrom
  • Wheels on the Bus by Jerry Smath
  • The wheels on the Bus by Dana Regan
  • Big Gus The Double Decker by Ian Pillinger
  • The Bus Driver by Todd H. Doodler
  • Red Truck, Yellow Bus: A Book of Colors by Rookie Toddler
  • I’m Feeling School Bus Yellow by Tina Gallo

Dramatic Play:

  • Play with Sesame Street bus.  “Doors go Open and Shut”
  • Melissa & Doug Transportation

  • Fisher Price Little People School Bus

Music/ Poems:

  • “Wheels on the Bus” youtube    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOiYN7iU-W8&t=572s

Foods:

  • Graham Cracker
  • Cinnamon Toast Crunch
  • Cheese
  • Mini Oreo

Fine Motor:

  • Paint a Shape Bus

Trips:

  • Take a bus ride.

Tot-School Yellow Day

Read:  

Song: 

YELLOW SUN


Yellow sun, oh what fun.
Now we all can play.
I will wear my yellow suit
And swim out in the bay.

Yellow sun, in the sky
Shinning down on me.
I will play out in the sun,
Then rest beneath a tree.

–Jean Warren

Color Recognition:  Show the child 3 cars or toys (be sure one is yellow).  Have the child point to the yellow car.

Word Recognition:  Print the Yellow paper to use with do-a-dot markers. 

Discuss: 

  • What is something yellow? Sunshine, bumble bee, cheese, etc…
  • “I spy something yellow…”

Snack:  Bananas, Lemonade, Lemon pudding, Pineapple, Corn, Kix, Eggs

Yellow Playdough

Get out any yellow play dough and yellow play dough toys and tools. Show the child how to use the tools.

Yellow Mixed Media Collage

Materials: any drawing materials that you have that are YELLOW (crayons, markers, colored pencil), white and yellow paper, scissors, glue

Description: Child used drawing materials on the white paper. Then she will cut small pieces of her paper and glue them all onto the yellow paper.

Skills Targeted: teach your tot to follow directions, be creative, and fine motor skills.

Play with Yellow Balloon

This girl loves to play with balloons, so I got out a yellow one for her to play with today.

YELLOW word and pictures

I found these Color Headers in the Target back to school clearance a few years ago.  She put the yellow pictures onto the YELLOW word.

Cornmeal Sunshine

Materials:

  • Paper
  • Glue
  • Cornmeal

Directions:

  1. Make a sunshine with glue on the paper.
  2. Let the child sprinkle cornmeal over the glue.
  3. Shake off any extra. Then she drew in the cornmeal with his finger.

Skills Targeted: teach your tot color recognition, teach your tot to follow directions

YELLOW Baby Bin

I made a Baby Bin filled with yellow toys for my granddaughter to play with too.

Here are the links to posts for the individual colors that we learned:

Rainbows Day 5 -What Makes a Rainbow

Today we talked about the science behind rainbows.  We learned that all a rainbow needs is light and water so we went outside to try to create some or our own rainbows.  Today we included more rainbow crafts, science, math, literature, and snacks.

What Makes a Rainbow

Discuss: A rainbow needs light and water for us to see it. Show a simple demonstration of how we bend light by using a straight straw and a clear cup that is half filled with water. Even though the straw is straight, it looks bent when we put it into the water. That is just the light bending. When we bend light, it is called “refraction.” Let’s bend some more light.  Show the kids a prism, go outside and used a prism to create a rainbow on a piece of white paper. Why do we see rainbows when it rains? The raindrops are like a tiny prism, bending the light that comes from the sun. So we need both sun (light) and rain (prism) at the same time to make a rainbow in the sky. Let’s do a simple demonstration to see how the sun and water make a rainbow.  We’ll use the hose in the backyard to make a rainbow.  Make sure the sun is behind us and the water is in front of us.

We did experiments from the “Magic School Bus The Mysteries of Rainbow Science Club Kit”.

Read: What Is a Rainbow? By Chris Arvetis and Carole Palmer

Comprehension Questions:

  1. What makes a rainbow? Light and water

Fruit Loop Bagel Breakfast

Materials:

  • Plain Bagels
  • Cream Cheese
  • Fruit Loops

Directions:

  1. spread cream cheese on the bagel
  2. place the fruit loops in the shape of a rainbow

Tissue Paper Rainbow

Materials:

  • colors of tissue papers
  • pencil with a full eraser
  • school glue
  • white cardstock with an outline of a rainbow on it
  • markers or crayons

Directions:

  1. Have the children use the markers or crayons to color in the colors they want their rainbow to look like.
  2. Cut the tissue into 1 inch squares.
  3. Pour some school glue onto a tray or plate.
  4. Have your child take one piece of tissue, and show them how to center (approximately!) the eraser onto it.
  5. Wrap the tissue up around the pencil. 
  6. Dip into the glue.
  7. Hold onto the edges of the tissue, and press the glue tipped end onto the paper, matching up the color from your picture. Slide the pencil out.

Rainbow in a Box

Discuss: Like water drops in falling rain, the CD separates white light into all the colors that make up the rainbow. The colors you see reflecting from a CD are interference colors, like the shifting colors you see on a soap bubble or an oil spill. You can think of light as as being made up of waves-like the waves in the ocean. When light waves reflect off the ridges on your CD, they overlap and interfere with each other. Sometimes the waves add together to make a rainbow.

Materials:

  • CD
  • Box
  • Flashlight

Directions:

  1. Shine a flashlight on an old CD in the bottom of a box turned on it’s side.
  2. Turn off the lights, and move the flashlight across the CD to make the rainbows dance.

Rainbow Addition

Materials:

  • Paper
  • Pen
  • Construction paper

Directions:

  1. Draw an outline of a rainbow on the paper.
  2. Write addition combinations on the blank rainbow. (make sure they are spaced out quite a bit)
  3. Cut the construction paper into rectangles small enough to cover one of the combinations.
  4. Write the answers to the top row of combinations on the red rectangles.
  5. Next row answers are on the orange rectangles. And so on.
  6. Child will look at the combination and find the answer in the colored pieces and place it over the combination. At the end there should be a completed colored rainbow.

I modified the one for A. to counting dots on the white paper and finding the correct number on the colored pieces.

And I modified the tots to matching colors.

Eat the Rainbow

Discuss:

Talk about what different colors of the rainbow that we can eat to be healthy. Fruits and Vegies Then make a chart with the kids that have all of the foods that they suggested written on it.

Materials:

  • Posterboard
  • Markers of crayons
  • Strawberries
  • Cantaloupe
  • Banana
  • Pear
  • Blueberries
  • Red Grapes
  • Kabob Skewers

Directions:

  1. Make a rainbow on a plate or platter with different fruits.

RED – Strawberries
ORANGE – Cantaloupe
YELLOW – Banana
GREEN – Pear
BLUE – Blueberries
VIOLET – Red grapes

    2. Let the children use the kabob sticks to make their rainbow fruit kabobs.

Read: I can eat a Rainbow by Annabel Karmel while they eat

Make a REAL Rainbow

Read: A Rainbow of My Own by Don Freeman

Discuss: Rainbows appear wherever sunlight falls on water or glass.  We used the Rainbow Diagram here to help us with this experiment.

Materials:

  • Glass of water
  • Dark kitchen
  • White Paper
  • Masking Tape
  • Flashlight

Directions:

  1. Fill a glass of water (almost to the top) and place it at the very edge of the counter in a VERY dark kitchen or bathroom.
  2. Place a sheet of plain white paper on the floor a few inches away from the counter.
  3. Put two pieces of masking tape over the front of a flashlight so that the light comes out of a slit about 1/8 inch wide.
  4. Shine this light across and down into the water as shown in the figure. When a narrow beam of light is passed through a glass of water, a spectrum can be seen on a white sheet of paper.
  5. Can you see a small rainbow on the white paper? If not, move the flashlight around a little until you achieve the best results.

Rainbow Symmetry

Discuss: A line of symmetry divides a shape into two identical parts. In some cases, as with a rainbow, you’ll find one line of symmetry down the middle. In other cases, there is more than one, like with eight sections of an orange. So if we paint a rainbow on one side of the paper and then fold it in half it should appear the same on both sides forming a symmetrical rainbow.

Materials:

  • Cardstock folded in half
  • Paint for all the colors of the rainbow

Directions:

  1. Fold the paper in half and open.
  2. Have the kids how to paint half a rainbow on one half of the paper in the right order. 
  3. Fold the paper over and press gently.
  4. Open again to see your rainbow print. 
IMG_0701

Rainbow Celebration Cake

Cake Materials:

  • White cake (2 boxes)
  • 9 in. cake pan
  • Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple GEL food coloring.

Cake Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350F degrees. Spray 9” cake pans. Make the 2 cakes according to the directions.
  2. Divide the batter into 6 bowls (about 1 1/2 cups each.
  3. Then whisk 2 drops of the appropriate food color into each bowl. Pour into the pans and bake for 12 minutes each.
  4. When you remove them from the oven, let them rest on the cooling rack, in the pan, for ten minutes. Then flip, cover, and stash them in the fridge to cool quickly.

Frosting Materials:

  • 2 Cups shortening
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • ½ cup water
  • 2 lbs. Powdered sugar

Frosting Directions:

  1. In large bowl, cream shortening with electric mixer. Add vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add water and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Keep bowl covered with a damp cloth until ready to use.
  2. This icing can be stored 2 weeks. rewhip before using.
IMG_0680I added sugar sprinkles in the shape of a rainbow to it too.

More rainbow fun that we had this week:

Rainbows Day 4 -Double Rainbows

Just last week we saw a double rainbow and I actually got a picture of it with my phone, so we decided to make that day 4 in our rainbow unit study.  We had a rainbow breakfast and lunch and did some more rainbow crafts, math, and science.  The kids loved the mini fruit rainbow pizzas that we had for snack today.

Double Rainbows

Discuss: In a “primary rainbow”, the arc shows red on the outer part, and violet on the inside. This rainbow is caused by light being refracted while entering a droplet of water, then reflected inside on the back of the droplet and refracted again when leaving it. In a double rainbow, a second arc is seen outside the primary arc, and has the order of its colors reversed, red facing toward the other one, in both rainbows. This second rainbow is caused by light reflecting twice inside water droplets. The second arc is also lighter than the first one.

Read: All the Colors of the Rainbow by Allan Fowler

Comprehension Questions:

  1. What is the order of the colors in a rainbow? Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple
  2. What is the order of the colors in the double rainbow on the top? Purple, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red
  3. Have the children draw a double rainbow (top rainbow lighter and in opposite order)

Rainbow Pancake Breakfast

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups buttermilk
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
  • food coloring

Directions:

  1. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.
  2. Lightly beat the eggs with the buttermilk, milk and melted butter.
  3. Just before you are ready to make the pancakes, add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients all at once, stirring just long enough to blend. The batter should be slightly lumpy.
  4. Separate the batter into 6 bowls and added food coloring to make the colors of the rainbow.
  5. Heat a lightly greased griddle or heavy skillet over medium-high heat (375 degrees on an electric griddle).
  6. Pour 1/4 cup batter per pancake onto the griddle or skillet, spacing the pancakes apart so they do not run together.
  7. When bubbles appear on the surface of the pancakes and the undersides are lightly browned, turn and cook for about 2 minutes longer, until lightly browned on the bottom.
IMG_0A said “Look, I made a flower” (so girly)!618

Hand Print Rainbow

Materials:

  • Paint (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple)
  • Poster board

Directions:

  1. Cut the poster board in the shape of a semi-circle.
  2. Have the children put their purple hand prints along the bottom curve.
  3. Then blue hand prints over the purple prints (it’s okay if it overlaps a bit)
  4. Then green, yellow, orange, and red hand prints

Blow It Up

Discuss: Baking soda and the vinegar create an ACID-BASE reaction. When combined/mixed they create a gas – carbon dioxide. Gasses need room to spread out, so the carbon dioxide gas fills the bottle and then moves into the balloon inflating it. A gas can float in the air but we usually can’t see it.

Materials:

  • baking soda
  • vinegar
  • plastic bottle
  • 6 balloons (one of each color)
  • funnels

Directions:

  1. Using your funnel pour vinegar into your bottle. You only need to fill about 1/3 of the bottle.
  2. Using another (dry) funnel pour baking soda into your balloon. Fill the balloon approx. 1/2 way.
  3. Cover the top of the bottle with you balloon. Make sure you don’t let the baking soda spill into the bottle yet.
  4. When ready, lift your balloon and let the baking soda fall into the vinegar.
  5. Watch as the mixture fizzes, bubbles & expands your balloon!

Measure a Rainbow

Materials:

  • Construction Paper in colors of the rainbow
  • Scissors
  • Stapler

Directions:

1. Measure and cut the construction paper into 1” wide strips. Measure and cut each of the strips into the following lengths:

•red ~ 10″
•orange ~ 9”
•yellow ~ 8”
•green ~ 7”
•blue ~ 6”
•purple ~ 5” 

2. Stack all of the strips together in the rainbow order with red on top. Align and staple the aligned end together.

3. Bend and align the other end and staple to form a rainbow!! And that’s it…a fun rainbow with a little bit of measuring practice as a bonus!

Rainbow Spaghetti Lunch

Ingredients:

  • Spaghetti
  • Oil
  • Food Coloring
  • Tomatoes
  • Carrots
  • Croutons
  • Lettuce
  • Rasins
  • Shredded Cabbage

Directions:

  1. Cook a small pot of spaghetti and drained it and tossed it in a couple of teaspoons of oil.
  2. Divided it into 6 bowls and added a some liquid food coloring to each one, and stirred it through.
  3. Serve with a salad make of RED – Tomatoes ORANGE – Carrots YELLOW – Croutons GREEN – Lettuce BLUE – Raisins VIOLET – Shredded Cabbage

Rainbow Wind Catcher

Materials:

  • paper plates
  • paint
  • glue sticks
  • a stapler
  • crepe paper

Directions:

  1. cut paper plates in half.
  2. paint a rainbow on the back sides, both halves. 
  3. after they were dry, use a glue stick to add the streamers.
  4. cut the streamers in half long wise so they measure about 1in. X 10in.
  5. in theory you would add the color of streamer under the color of paint.
  6. glue streamers to the inside of both halves of the plates.
  7. staple the two plates together.
  8. tie a knot in a loop of yarn and then stapled it in when putting the plates together.

Crayon Melting Canvas

Discuss: Why does wax melt? Energy travels from the heated area to the wax, a solid. When the energy hits the wax molecules, it causes them to speed up, resulting in liquid. As the heat is removed, the wax molecules begin to slow down and heat the air around them. As the molecules lose energy they slowly stop moving as much and become a solid again.

Materials:

  • 11×14 canvas
  • hot glue gun & glue stick
  • hair dryer
  • lots of crayons
  • newspaper

Discussion:

  1. Pick out the colors you want to use and line them up until you run out of space.
  2. Using a glue gun, make a line of glue across the crayons (if you want a certain part showing, like the label, be careful to put the glue on the opposite side). Quickly place onto canvas in a line, as shown below, with tips facing down. 
  3. Line your floor with newspaper, place the canvas against the wall, and start blow drying.
  4. Aim the heat right at the middle to lower area of the crayons (where the tips are). Once the wax starts melting, move the dryer around as needed to prevent splattering and get wax to go straight down.  
IMG_0655

Extension:

Kids can do individual crayon melting pictures on cardstock then cut off the crayons.

IMGI tried spelling something with stickers and peeling them off._0594
IMG_05Instead of the wax not showing up under the stickers to make it appear white, the wax spread under the stickers.96

Mini Fruit Pizzas

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 cup butter, softened
  • 3 ounces cream cheese
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 jar Marshmallow Cream
  • 1 block cream cheese
  • Raspberries
  • Manderin Oranges (cut in halves)
  • Banana (sliced and cut in fourths)
  • Green Grapes (cut in halves)
  • Blueberries
  • Plums (sliced and cut in fourths)

Directions:

  1. In a bowl cream butter, 3 ounces cream cheese and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; beat until smooth.
  2. In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture. Stir till soft dough forms.
  3. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours.
  4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
  5. Bake cookies for 8 minutes or until lightly browned and let cool.
  6. Mix 1 jar of marshmallow cream and 1 block of cream cheese for the kids to spread on the cookies.
  7. Cut up the fruit for the kids to make a mini rainbow on their cookies.

More rainbow fun that we had this week:

Rainbows Day 3 -Color Wheel

For the third day of our Rainbow Unit Study we learned that the rainbow colors make up the artist’s color wheel.  We learned about primary colors, secondary colors, and complementary colors.  We did some color mixing science and made some more yummy rainbow snacks. I also introduced a fun sensory tub today.

The Color Wheel

Discuss:

Primary Color- Red, yellow and blue. Primary colors are the 3 colors that can not be mixed or formed by any combination of other colors. All other colors are made from these 3 hues.

Secondary Colors- Green, orange and purple. These are the colors formed by mixing the primary colors.

Complementary colors- are any two colors which are directly opposite each other on the color wheel, such as red and green and red-purple and yellow-green. 

Read: Take a Walk on a Rainbow by Miriam Moss

Comprehension Questions:

  1. What are the primary colors? Red, Yellow, Blue
  2. What are the secondary colors? Green, Orange, Purple
  3. How can you easily find complementary colors on the color wheel? The are opposite each other.

Painting A Color Wheel

I printed off this Color Wheel and let the children paint it with the colors in the correct order.

Color Mixing

Discuss: Ask your child if he has ever heard the word “hypothesis” before. Explain that “hypothesis” is a special word that scientists use for “an idea that you can test.” A hypothesis is a kind of prediction. Explain that when someone makes a hypothesis, he or she uses clues to make a guess about something. Give some examples, such as, “If I drop this basketball on the floor, my hypothesis is that it will bounce.” Or, “When I see dark clouds in the sky, I have a hypothesis that it will rain soon.” Encourage your child to come up with a simple hypothesis or two.  How can we test your hypothesis?

Show a color wheel to look at and discuss. What are the primary colors (red, yellow, blue). Ask them what there hypothesis is about mixing red and yellow? It will make orange. What about yellow and blue? It will make green. What about red and blue? It will make purple.

Materials:

  • White ice cube tray
  • water
  • red, yellow, and blue food coloring
  • 6 clear jars
  • Eye dropper

Directions:

  1. Fill the ice cube tray with water.
  2. Add 1 drop of one color to each section (make some red, yellow, and blue). 
  3. Put it in the freezer at least an hour before the activity.
  4. Fill 6 clear cups with water. Add the red, yellow, and blue food coloring to the cups, one color per cup.
  5. Do you think we can make all the colors of the rainbow with only these three primary colors.
  6. Take out the ice cubes and let them know that they are the same 3 colors that are in the cups, the primary colors.
  7. What do you think will happen if we put a red ice cube into a yellow cup?
  8. Drop it in, then stir. Orange!
  9. What do you think will happen if we added blue to yellow? Green!
  10. Next try red and blue, which makes the purple.
  11. Then the kids will want to see what would happen when we mixed all the colors and make brown.
  12. Line up the colors in order and said.. We made all the colors of the rainbow!

Extension:

  1. Use the red, yellow, and blue cup of colored water to play with.
  2. Use the eye dropper to add the primary colors of water to each section in the ice tray to make new colors.
  3. Let the kids try.

A Colorful Hypothesis


I used the Dinosaur Train A Colorful Hypothesis printout to help teach coloring mixing combinations to the children.

Rainbow Sprite

Ingredients:

  • Sprite
  • Kool-Aid (red, yellow, blue colors)
  • Ice cube tray

Directions:

  1. Make the Kool-Aid according to package directions & then pour some of it into ice trays, a different ice tray for each color.
  2. Add the color of ice cubes to a cup of Sprite. Watch the color the colors mix if you use two different colors of ice cubes.

Rainbow Rice Garden Sensory Tub

Materials:

  • Uncooked rice
  • Food coloring
  • Rubbing alcohol
  • Tub
  • Gardening tools
  • Fake flowers

Directions:

  1. Measure out the rice (6 cups) and put it in a Ziploc bag with about 2 drops of food coloring and 2T of rubbing alcohol. (make red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple)
  2. Mix the rice in the bags to spread the color. Put them on pans to dry in the sun.
  3. Pour each color side by side in a sensory tub in the color of a rainbow.
  4. Add garden tools and gardening gloves and the fake flowers.

Rainbow Cookies

Ingredients:

  • Sugar cookie dough
  • food coloring (all the colors of the rainbow)

Directions:

  1. Divide dough into 6 portions. Tint each with a different food color (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple).
  2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
  3. Roll dough into strips and form your rainbows but pushing the colors together.
  4. Bake cookies for 8 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool and store in an airtight container.

Rainbow Collage

Materials:

  • Crayons
  • Cardstock
  • Felt
  • Paper
  • Feathers
  • Pom poms
  • Ribbon
  • Foam Pieces
  • Glue

Directions:

  1. Have the children pre-color-sort collage supplies.
  2. Draw and color a rainbow on a piece of cardstock.
  3. The children color matched an assortment of stickers, felt, paper, feathers, pom poms, ribbon, and foam pieces onto the rainbow.

More rainbow fun that we had this week:

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