Color Mix-a-roo!

We continued to talk about colors at school this week. And, we had a lot of fun doing some more color mixing.

I made some red, yellow, and blue playdough and let the kids mix to their delight. Here James is mixing red and yellow to see what color it will make.

We also did some finger painting with the primary colors. They loved the cold, smooth feel of the paint on their hands.

We also did an experiment with skittles that I found off of prekinders.com where the colors separate from the candy, and the S on the skittles floats to the top. I told the kids we were going to perform a magic trick and make the S float to the top of the water while the skittle stayed at the bottom. They were amazed and could not wait to tell you parents that they could do a magic trick. So, if they want to try it at home, just take 3 skittles, put them around the edge of a bowl filled with a little water, and watch the magic happen.

We learned about the letter C this week. C is for cookie! We decorated our own cookie and used candy topping to trace our cookie C before we ate them.

For a math center, we had a ball! Or two, or three, or whatever number our dice landed on! For this center, we rolled a die and counted the number that it landed on. Then we took that many of our colorful balls and threw them into the basket.

We also practiced our coloring skills.

And our fine motor skills with these color coordinated puzzles.

For a word recognition center we had a bean bag toss where we tossed the correct color of bean bag onto the corresponding color word.

For a dramatic play area, we played with our colorful crystal builders. 

We reviewed letters A, B, and C this week. We practiced writing them with our dry erase upper and lowercase letters.

Books this week: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See by Bill Martin Jr.

and

The Crayon Box that Talked by Shane DeRolf

Songs this week: 

Rainbow Song 

(to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”)

Red, orange, yellow, green, and blue.

Indigo and violet too.

Rainbow, rainbow in the sky.

Rainbow, rainbow way up high.

Red, orange, yellow, green, and blue.

Indigo and violet too.

and

our song about manners because we talked about always remembering to say Please and Thank You this week.

Please and Thank You

(to the tune of Frere Jacques)

Please and Thank you

Please and Thank You

We must say, We must say

When we ask for something

When we ask for something 

Everyday, Everyday

And, a BIG THANK YOU to Brett and his mom for bringing us a new class pet! We now have two soft, fuzzy caterpillars in our school that we get to watch transform into beautiful butterflies. We are so excited!!

Colors, colors, everywhere!

A is for alligator! Watch out or he might munch you up....aaaahhhhh. That's what the A would say too!

We also talked about the letter B this week.

We used our colorful counting chips to practice forming the letter B. Each chip has a small metal ring around the edge, so after the kids finished making their B, they could use their "magic" magnetic wand to pick up all of the chips in one swoop!

For a math center, we used the stacking cups shown below to race a friend as we counted to ten. Each cup has a number on it from 1-10 so we took turns playing this game that can definitely stack up!

We also played with some Orbeez! These are always a favorite! They come in many colors and they grow from the size of a needle tip to the size of a small marble by absorbing water. They keep their smooth, wet feel even after they have fully grown which the kids love. We used them as a color sorting center.

We had different colors of cannisters, and could either drop or bounce (yes they bounce!) our orbeez balls into the correct corresponding container. Oh, what fun!

We also mixed colors with water and water droppers to see what colors we could make. Then, we'd empty the cups, fill them with primary colors again, and do it all over again.

Check out all those colors.

Another color recognition and color mixing center we had were these color paddles.

I just love watching children's minds at work. They were SO happy when they put the paddles together and saw that it really worked!

A really fun game that is excellent for color and number recognition is a game called Hyperdash. There are many different modes and levels of play, so it really is fun for all ages. For our colors week, we simply played the level where it would ask you a color and you would have to touch that color with the tagger. Then, it would tell you how many seconds it took to complete, and they enjoyed trying to beat their own score.

We also sorted fish by color. We did this using rainbow colored goldfish, so its always fun having a snack while we work.

I am pretty sure that yellow won for most goldfish everytime. Guess we know what the box has the most of :)

We did an art project we called scribble art. The children were asked to find the black crayon in their box and to simply scribble a design onto their paper. After doing so, they could then use any other color to color their designs. 

For another math center, we used these pegboard numbers. Each mat has a number from 1-10, and then the corresponding number of holes to add that many pegs to that board.

Songs of the week: We sang about our primary colors this week.

R-E-D Red

(Tune of Are You Sleeping)

R-E-D, red. 

R-E-D, red. 

I can spell red

I can spell red.

Fire trucks are red,

Stop signs are red, too.

R-E-D, 

R-E-D. 

BLUE

(Tune: THE FARMER IN THE DELL)

 

B-L-U-E SPELLS BLUE

B-L-U-E SPELLS BLUE

HI-HO DID YOU KNOW

B-L-U-E SPELLS BLUE?

 

THE BIG SKY IS BLUE

THE OCEAN IS TOO

HI-HO DID YOU KNOW

B-L-U-E SPELLS BLUE?

YELLOW

(IF YOU’RE HAPPY AND YOU KNOW IT)

 

Y-E-L-L-O-W SPELLS YELLOW.

Y-E-L-L-O-W SPELLS YELLOW.

LIKE THE EARLY MORNING SUN

WHEN THE DAY HAS JUST BEGUN.

Y-E-L-L-O-W SPELLS YELLOW.

 

DAFFODILS AND BABY DUCKS ARE YELLOW.

LEMONADE AND SCRAMBLED EGGS ARE YELLOW.

I LIKE THE SMILEY FACE THAT’S YELLOW.

HE IS SUCH A HAPPY FELLOW.

Y-E-L-L-O-W SPELLS YELLOW.

Book of the week: Our book was called Mouse Paint by Ellen Scoll Walsh. Excellent book! for color mixing. Really cute.

School is cool!

And so are my awesome students! We had a super first week of school! Super fun and super busy. The first week is always a busy one because there is so much to accomplish! My goal is to introduce myself and the kids to each other, as well as show them how much fun preschool can be but at the same time set the rules and establish a routine. And, of course, we want to learn! So, this week we focused on each other, as well as some of the staples of preschool fundamentals.  

We completed this heart puzzle as a teamwork activity. We talked about how if we each just had one piece of a puzzle and were asked to complete it by ourselves, would we be able to do it? No, but if each of us does our part and puts our piece of the puzzle on, we can complete it as a team.

One of those "staples" of preschool that I mentioned earlier is definately playdough! It is so versatile and the kids love it! We will play with this various times through the year for fine motor skills like cutting,  and finger strength. We may also use it as a shape formation and recognition tool, and to help us with letter formations.

We made these adorable duck hats to go along with our Duck Song. Look for the words at the bottom of this entry. This is one of the songs that we sing to get our wiggles out!

We also talked about the letter A this week. "A" is for apple, and all of the other surprises that started with A that were hidden inside of these apples.

We also used apples for our math center this week. We took turns recording how tall each of us was, and then counted how tall in apples. Ask your child how many apples tall they were!

Each child received a puzzle with their name on it to take home for name recognition practice. We built them in school a couple of times too!

We also got to play with blocks, and some magnetic toys. Can't go wrong there!

For a reading center we took turns listening to the story readers.

And finally, for the introduction of colors week next week, we played with the parachute! A must play for every child! The plan was to do this outdoors, but we were really short on time so we decided to just move some tables and play inside for awhile!

We celebrated some birthdays this week! Happy Birthday to:

Aydon!

Easton!

and Taryn!

Songs for the week:

The Duck Song

I am a duck 

I quack, quack, quack. (using hands as a beak)

I have some feathers. (using hands as feathers)

on my back, back, back. (Turn around and wiggle back side0

When I go down (shrink your body down)

to the lake (open arms wide like a circle of water)

I wiggle, and I waddle (wiggle and waddle)

And I shake, shake, shake (shake body while turning all around)

September

Tune: "Are You Sleeping"

It's September.

It's September.

Fall is here.

Fall is here.

We are making new friends.

We are making new friends.

We like school.

We like school.

Book of the week: How Do Dinosaurs go to School by By Jane Yolen and Mark Teague