Colors Galore

So I thought I was finished with colors last week, but I still had some projects I wanted to finish up.  This class is loving mixing colors.  Many years I make the Rainbow Stew which is a lot of fun, but this year I opted out because I need to move on.  We have done some fun color mixing projects though.  Today we finished up with the icing mixing.  With one can of icing we mix the three primary colors of icing in plastic bags:

We then mixed the different color combos to form the new colors.  Just clip a hole in the corner of the ziplock back and it's super easy to squeeze the color out.  I used Graham Crackers this year because I had some left from snack.  Many years I use vanilla wafers, or some kind of small cookie.  We used popsicle sticks as a knife to spread, and I'm even so cheap that I gave them half a plate to work on, they really didn't need a whole big plate.

 

This is a great color mixing video I found.  It is Sesame Street and my students loved it.  I liked it too and we have watched it a couple of times now.

 

Odds and Ends:

We worked on the Brown Bear independent reader.  They were excited to take these home and read them to their families:

 

 

You can print the book at:

making learning fun just click here

They also have all kinds of other fun Brown Bear activities.

 

We also graphed our favorite Brown Bear animals on a large class graph.  I made copies of the animals from the book above.  I then let the students choose their favorite animal, color it, and add it to the graph.

 

Other Color centers:

So This maybe the student's favorite color center.  It is also great for fine motor skills as well!

 

 

I put out the 3 primary colors of dyed water.  Then students use the eye dropper so suck up the water and transfer it to their container.  In their containers they can mix and experiment with the different colors.  The eye droppers I ordered from a school supply store, but you can also get them on amazon.  I got the containers from a conference I went to.  You could use any type of sectioned containers- or the cupcake holders that student's bring for birthdays.  You can see I cut apart the cups from the cupcakes and use them for painting or other projects.

 

 

Here's how we graphed our favorite colors.  It was a big hit with the kids.  It really scared me though- looking at how some of these kids write their names still... ugh, we have a lot of work to do still.

 

More Color Fun!

To go along with our color unit, I use these centers at the end of the day. 

These are some of the color centers I am using in the classroom.  I like this first center because it's simple, the kids love it, and it focuses on fine motor which many of my students need this early in the year.  I have found that telling them they get to be "scientists" and sort the colors with the tweezers makes it so much more fun.  All I did was printed some brown bear pictures and glued them into the corner of each construction paper square.  Then I laminated the paper.  I then just throw a bunch of pompoms and cut up pipe cleaners (I didn't have all the colors in pom poms) into a bin and the kids sort.  They love it!

This is my pocket chart center in the dramatic play.  This was from my color cards that I got at the dollar tree.  It looks plain, but I wanted to leave it open ended so the children could sort the pictures how they wanted.  It's been fun to see how different students sort them.

We have been working on cutting and the concept of "dots" of glue.  In this center the students are cutting from magazines pictures of things they like and then glueing them into the right colors.  This is only after a few minutes on day one, I'm always amazed by the finished product. (apartently someone likes Gymboree coupons).

In my sensory table I have colored rice that I dyed (food coloring and rubbing alcohol) and I had letters from Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  I added bears and color cups for the students to sort by color.  This centers seems to be a favorite this year.

These are our rainbow clouds we will be making today.  We talked about the order of colors in the rainbow.  (Sorry this is mine that has been folded in my files).  We have 2 clouds we cut, staple, and stick some Kleenex inside to make them puffy.  We then hang them from our clips in our classroom.

I will post some more color things we have done later today.

Colors Galore

We are still talking about colors next week.  We have started our "Orange is a Carrot" book.  I have no idea of where this came from, but it's a cute poem that the students easily learn.  I have it in two forms that we read from.  I made a book by cutting poster board in 4 pieces and painting the images:

 

 

I also have it in pocket chart form.  This looks like overload because I have it tacked up on my calendar-

 

"a" is our popcorn word coming up so it's great for them to start seeing it as a word as well.

 

They then have their own books we are working on in their desks.  Each day we complete a page or two.  I have a template for it by clicking on the image.  The green grass is a green strip the cut and snip like grass the blue sky is a blue square which they can add a cotton ball as a cloud.  I also use a dye cut of a bear for the bear page

 

 

 

 The words and pieces are all included in this book the words are:

 

Orange is a Carrot,

Yellow is a Pear,

Purple is a Plum

 and Brown is a Bear. 

Green is the Grass,

Blue is the Sky,

Black is a Funny Hat,

and red is a cherry pie.

 

We will also be mixing colors.  We will use colored water and see how it "magically changes" as well as giving them small pieces of primary colored playdoh which we mix one by one to make all of the colors.

 

 

 

Freebies!

I worked on a couple of Brown Bear things today and finished my Brown Bear Bingo Game.  I thought this would be a fun and easy way to end the Brown Bear and color unit...  I also thought about having Brown Bear Stations to finish it off, but I am still thinking on that.  You can click on the BINGO card below to download it.  There are 10 different cards so chances are you will have to print each one two times.  This game will have a lot of winners so have your prizes ready.

* I could make these much cuter and colorful, but if you're like me and print a ton of stuff, then you want less ink used.  I plan to mount these on construction paper to make them sturdy and give them some more color.

 

I also decided today that I wanted bigger center signs so I made some up today similar to the smaller ones in my TPT store.  Click below to download.