Purple and Pink Week

I'm a few weeks behind but three weeks ago we studied two colors, Purple and Pink. We were starting to run out of time and had cancelled days due to parent teacher conferences and staff professional development.

This week we added two colored creatures to our Hermit Crab shells, a purple sea urchin and a pink snail. The purple sea urchin is made out of a Styrofoam ball that we painted. Then the student pushed pipe cleaners into once they were dry. The pink snails were tricky. They ended up being a barely air-filled balloon and one section of an egg carton. The balloons were a nice fit into the cartons then the students made the swirl of the shell with a permanent marker. The way the snail came out was awesome, at least I thought so because we were going to use pink cotton balls and white construction paper. After some snooping around the craft supplies I found the other materials.

We did our usual color hunts for both colors. Each week, we are wowed at how many things the students find of each color in the room. We were almost certain that there wouldn't be enough of either color but the student continue to amaze, finding more than enough pictures for the 11 x 18 coordinating color construction paper (unintended tongue twister).

We also did some cut and paste activities with an eggplant, using construction paper and cotton candy using the pink cotton balls I found, glue and construction paper. These are hanging over their cubbies and the students love seeing their work around the room.

We also conducted a 5 senses activity with purple grapes and pink grapefruit. It was a unanimous vote for loving grapes and hating grapefruit. I have some great shots of little sour faces.

We learned how crayons were made from a How It's made Video and a Scholastic Reader. The student have the 8 pack of crayons which doesn't include pink so this was a great time to use those two activities. We also read a book about how crayons are made.

We touch on how to make the color pink during the crayon making process but for our lava lamp activity. I showed them that red and white could make pink but I didn't have a white food coloring to make the water pink and that I was going to use Kool-aid mix.  I was in the process of making purple which we learned during our color mixing experiment (orange week) when I had put the tiniest drop of red into the vile. It turned out to look pinker than I could have make with the lemonade mix. I did explain to my students that pink was a lighter shade of red and to make red lighter we could add white (like we had done with the paint before we started) or we could just add less red food coloring. I love teachable moments when I learn something too! The third picture are all of our lava lamps that we made with colored water and vegetable oil. The kids can play with them tilting the container from side to side and the colored water will stay separated (unless the container is shaken the container a little too much)

We did an activity with jellybeans and the colors orange, pink and purple. The students had a pre made graph where they placed all of their jellybeans. Once they were done the colored every box that had a jellybean in it. We also use purple and pink play-dough which I made from the same recipe as I had before and this time they turned out awesome. For a special snack we had purple and orange jello. It turned out just as cool as the blue and yellow Jello from blue week.

Blue Week

The fourth color (and final primary color!) was blue. This week was another easy addition for the shell because there were two blue things in the story. We decided to keep the lanternfish blue and made him out of construction paper and foil. I had the students draw the details on him since cutting out a fish would have frustrated them too easily at this point in the year.

We only had a four day week but we managed to pack a lot in. I read a story about cookie monster, who blue so we created him out of construction paper and hung those up on our cabinets. We also focused on the number three and a triangle because a triangle has three sides. (In hindsight I should have saved circle for this week) We also made cookies that we tried to only put three blue m&m's on but it was hard not to load up one cookie full of blue.

We read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and recreated the cover of the book with swedish fish and blue sharks. When I planned this activity, I could have sworn that they made blue swedish fish. The people I asked didn't know and I searched three stores and the bulk section at Wegman's.





We did make blue and yellow Jell-o. This was tricky. I had forgot to make the Jell-o for yellow week (another cheap weekly activity). So we made the yellow Jell-o Tuesday and put it in the fridge to set. I made the blue Jell-o Wednesday and let it get to room temperature before putting it on top of the yellow or it would have melted it back into a liquid. The picture is hard to see but it is a week old at this point.

And we read Mixed Up Chameleon then created our own chameleons to hang in the door. We traced the cover of the book onto a blank transparency and had the students use tempera paints to color him in. They make lovely window decorations.

Red Week

The second week in the color unit, we focused on the color red. Red was an easy addition to our shells because the Hermit Crab is red in the story. We did note that the hermit crabs we have in the classroom are purple, orange and red. They are called purple pinchers because their larger claw is a purplish color.
For this activity, we painted one hand of each students and pressed it onto a paper. I saw many different of how to make a crab and this one made the most sense. For the creation of these crab shells, I am trying to expose the students to many different types of textures and materials.

This week we also read The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle and made a set of ladybugs wings for each student. We had a fire drill this day that took away the time that they would have had to do some dramatic play, pairing up and acting out the first and last scene of this story. I would have kept them to do that activity the next day but they all really wanted to take the wings home. We did have a chance to talk about the symmetry of ladybug wings and they all did a great job make the wings look "the same" on both sides.

Our big math sorting activity this week was with m&m's. Instead of making a bar graph like the goldfish activity. I drew out colored circles for each m&m color and the students sorted them accordingly. Once they were sorted, they had to count each group of m&m's. I would write them on the paper then the students would have use their finger tips to make a dot for each m&m. This was the tricky part for them. They really had to follow directions or they would have mixed colors accidentally. They did a really good job. I am fortunate that I have a small number of students and a teaching assistant so my students get a lot of one on one attention.

Green Week

The first unit we are working on in Pre-K is color and we started with the color green. I run a very structured schedule for my students. We do similar activities each week but we will always change the color and how we do them. The first week of school was very short. We did many get to know you activities and read A House for Hermit Crab. After reading the story, we all made our own shells. Each week we read the story on Monday and add something of our focus color to our shell.

The first week was tricky because Hermit Crab does not have anything green that he picks up and puts on his shell. There is green sea weed in the story so we added that to our board. 

From there we made play dough with cool aid with a recipe that I get from a recipe. I have made it four different times now and each time it comes out different. I used all of the same ingredients (small bag of flour, etc...) but I found that there is too much water! Just use one cup if you use this one. I also use two packets of kool-aid to make it smell better.

We go on a color hunt in the room where I give the camera over to the students. Then I print all of the pictures and put them on like-colored construction paper which we hang to decorate our room. Each week we had lots of things to our room to make it our own and this activity really helps them to do just that.

For one math center this week we sorted the multicolored goldfishes. Each student counted their fish, counted out the same number of colored paper squares and added them to a graph. After it was finished we talked about which color fish had more, which had less and if any of them had the same number. They really enjoyed this activity, the only difficult part was to not eat the fish until they were counted.