Colors, Colors!

We are focused on EVERYTHING colors around here right now! Color songs, science, math, playtime etc. 

Scat the Magic Cat-He knows how to change his colors which is SO cool!

Color patterning

Rainbow fish-Size sorting

Rainbow song

Red day-Stamping

Color Dishes-we washed them with our friends for bonding time

Giant color sorting mat

Mouse in a house-Color game

Who's missing? Fun get to know you game.  We used a green sheet for "green day"

Singing Rainbow Song with our friends

Color button sorting game

Color Ice-cream cones game

Getting to know you graph- We did eye colors and hair type

Color science using milk, dawn dish soap, and food coloring.  This experiment is so MAGICAL!  Try it! You just add a few drops food coloring to milk, then drip some dawn into it using a Q-tip. 

The funnest sensory activity EVER!!! Color mixing! Pure entertainment with LOTS of learning! 

Primary color mixing science

Look how mesmerized they are!! I got lots of ooohs and ahhhs! 

Gummy bear color/counting song and game

"Blue Day" scarf dance to "I'm Blue!"  This was popular and has been requested several times since!!

Color pom-pom play and exploration.  Scoops, cups, and spoons included for extra development and learning. 

P is for St Patrick's

We made these beautiful rainbows using a rainbow template, fruit loops, cotton balls, crayons, glitter and glue.  These are wonderful for honing in on those fine motor skills as well as working on sorting and patterning skills, and it's a wonderful sensory experience for sound (think digging in the fruit loop bowl) smell, sight, touch and taste (we all know they can't resist tasting a few). 

A Busy Week

 N is for build your own nest sensory tub, complete with worms, chicks and eggs!  We also used noodles in a lot of our activities to learn a variety of skills.  Below we are using them to make patterns.  We had so much going on that this was pretty much all I had time to take pictures of.

L is for Love Patterns

We had a great time coming up with different patterns to complete on our pattern cards. We used some of my Valentine's erasers to do this math activity. 

J is for Jungle Patterns

Learning patterns is such an important math skill! It may seem like such a simple skill to us as adults, but there have been numerous studies that suggest the idea that out of all mental skills, pattern recognition is said to have the highest correlation with general intelligence. Pattern recognition is the ability to recognize order in chaos.  Patterns can be found in ideas, words, symbols, numbers, and images.  They can also be found in behavior, routines, and in nature. By understanding patterns children are able to predict what comes next which contributes to greater social development as well.

G is for Garden's

For our garden unit we learned about what a plant needs to grow, the parts of a plant, how the edible parts of a plant can be roots (potatoes, onions, radish, carrots etc), seeds (sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, corn), leaves (lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower),  and stems (asparagus,  celery).  We also had the chance to do some garden painting using real fruits and vegetables.  I think they turned out spectacular!  We made some garden stepping stone mosaic decorations using air dry clay, cookie cutters, pasta, gems and beads.  The kids were especially excited to take these home!  We did some garden patterning using green clovers and flowers and we used my alphabet grid to play a bean bag toss game where you throw the bean bag and then say the name and sound of the letter the bean bag lands on.  We also grew green grassy guys as part of our letter g/garden theme.  The kids anxiously awaited the growth of their green "hair".  Finally, we did the classic celery experiment where you soak celery in colored water for several days to observe how the celery soaks up the water and starts to change into the same color of the water.  

D is for December

We had fun making patterns, counting and sorting with Christmas Erasers.  This was one of the patterns we made together. 

C is for Castles

Today we made patterns using jewels to go along with our castle unit.  The kids love having new things to manipulate and "play" with. 

Thanksgiving Patterns

I love having different patterning cards for all the holidays!  These cards were extra educational since we always learn a little bit about Pilgrims and Native Americans each year. 

October Patterning

I have all kinds of fun Halloween trinkets to "play" math with!  We used them for counting, graphing, sorting, and patterning which are all important mathematical concepts.  

Fall Math

 As part of fire safety month we used firestation mats with bean "dalmations" to practice counting.

We also did some patterning with fall themed pattern cards. 

Z is for Zoo Patterns

We used lion, monkey and whale mini erasers to create patterns for the math part of our lesson. 

More Patterns

This is a wonderful skill for kids to learn and is helpful with math applications they will be learning over the years.  We used stickers this time around since the kids love variety and peeling off stickers is great for fine motor development.