Grow Me. Grow You.

Preschool Theme: Color.

This lesson was probably my favorite so far-it's like art meets science. I found a lot of great ideas http://www.everythingpreschool.com. We missed Halley today-she was out sick. It was pretty different with four energetic boys.

1. Circle Time. For homefun last week, the kids were supposed to cook with their parents (I gave each of them a mix) and then tell about it during circle time. I remember the first circle time ever (the parents were there) and how shy they were. Now they stand up proud-so cute to hear them talking about the pancakes or rolls they made and how they stirred it. We clapped and told them good job. Circle time with the kids is so cute now.

Going with our theme, I asked each child to find something in the room with a certain color. They all individually got their object and brought them back to the circle to share.

2. Art Time. Shades of Color. 1. Each child had a white ice cube tray and filled the first three holes with red, yellow and blue water (a dropper in each color...3 of them).

2. Each child used the dropper to mix the colors in the empty spaces. They created many shades of beautiful colors.

3. Afterward, they used the paint colors they created to paint a picture.

Stained Glass. Contact paper with colored tissue stuck to it. I got this idea from Ali's blog. How darling is this picture?

The contact paper is at Target and a 10,000 pre-cut colored tissue papers from Lakeshore Learning in Fountain Valley.

3. Academic Time. I prepared pages of the upper and lower case letters we've learned so far (A-E) and the numbers by writing them out with a highlighter. The kids wrote over them with pens. Cody inspired me to do this more one on one with Apollo. He worked so hard tracing his even after the other kids were done. His mom works with him tracing his letters...now Apollo's mom will too:) I love teaching preschool because I learn how to be a better teacher and mom.

4. Snack and a Story. Watermelon drinks. Oh Wow-so so yummy! My friend January, made one for me the other day. Just put chunks of fresh watermelon in the blender with a few ice cubes. I had to add a little water just to get the blender going. As a fun addition, boil boba (they're like big tapioca) and put them in the bottom of the drinks and topp them off with a big straw that you can slurp up the boba too. You can find them at Asian markets with the straws close by. January told us to go to 99 Ranch Market and the boba and straws were each only a buck. January said other melons-cantaloupe, honeydew, or other fruits. Milk can be added to some if need be.

For their story, the kids listened to Goldilocks and the 3 bears on cd. This gave me some time to prepare their snack.

5. Music Time. I found this song chant that we added to music time:

When I See Red I put my hand on my head
When I see Blue I touch my shoe
When I see green I wash my face real clean
When I see yellow I wave to the fellows
When Orange is found I put my hand on the ground
When I see pink I think, I think, I think

The kids thought it was cute.

For the last couple weeks, I've found some movement songs that tell the kids what to do. Here we are acting like frogs.

6. Quiet Reading. I snapped a pic of the kids-they look so cute with their books.

7. Games. The Color Mixer Pyramid. I painted one hand of each kid and then they stamped it on the top of their paper. Then painted another color on the other hand and they stamped it on the bottom. After, they rubbed their hands together making a new color and stamped one hand in the middle of the two. A fun experiment for all ages to try.

blue plus red makes purple.

blue plus yellow makes green.

red plus yellow makes orange.

8. Physical Fitness. We were going to take turns looking at the different colors around us but we didn't have time so I'll assign it for their homefun today.

9. Science Experiment. Rainbow Bottle. Get several different densities of liquid (oil, water, alcohol, etc.) and use food coloring to die each one a different color. Put these in a bottle (oil then water then alcohol) and let your children play with these bottles. I thought the liquids would stay their individual colors but instead, it became a brownish red. It was still fun to talk about solids and liquids and watch the layers separate (but with four boys shaking away-we didn't see any layers for awhile).