A World of Color

Beauty without colour seems somehow to belong to another world.  ~Murasaki Shikibu

On Tuesday, May 1 we will:

• Read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carle.
• Read Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton.
• Review the signs for colors (American Sign Language)
• Complete a color sorting/craft activity.
• Go outside to find colors in nature, and maybe bring some nature back to add to our craft!
• Sing a song of shapes.

Ideas for home:

• Always point out colors when interacting with children, especially younger children who are still learning their colors.
• Have fun mixing small containers of colored water. Let children experiment with mixing and making new colors.
• We love sorting bears at our house, we have these ones. I like this set because it has bears in 3 sizes/weights and 6 colors. There are numerous activities that for these bears to practice colors, counting, and sorting skills.
• I feel that it is important to point out beauty that we see in nature, music, art, architecture, and the kindness of people. A sunset, mountain or ocean view, a flower growing, a song, a painting, a photograph, sharing, giving and kindness are all things that can be beautiful and evoke feelings within us. Children are bombarded with images at such a young age that it can be confusing to understand what "beauty" is. They need to know that it is more than the images that they see in advertisements and other media. They need to know that beauty lies within them and they need to know that we see it too.
•    From thefreedictionary.com:          beauty [ˈbjuːtɪ n pl -ties
  1. the combination of all the qualities of a person or thing that delight the senses and please the mind

  2. a very attractive and well-formed girl or woman

  3. Informal an outstanding example of its kind the horse is a beauty

  4. Informal an advantageous feature one beauty of the job is the short hours
           5. Informal, old-fashioned a light-hearted and affectionate term of address hello, my old            beauty! 
• Pick a color for each day of the week. For that color each day dress in that color, plan a meal around that color, find it in the house or while out and about, find it in nature. Just have fun with it! 
• Play Candy Land! :)
• Sing:                
  Find the Color
  (Tune: The Muffin Man)
  Sing the following song and let children point to a (color) item:
  Oh, can you find the color (blue),
  The color blue, the color (blue)?
  Oh, can you find the color (blue),
  Somewhere in this room?
   "Colors" 
  ~Shel Silverstein,
  
  
  
  
  
  My skin is kind of sort of brownish
  Pinkish yellowish white.
  My eyes are greyish blueish green,
  But I'm told they look orange in the night.
  My hair is reddish blondish brown,
  But it's silver when it's wet.
  And all the colors I am inside
  Have not been invented yet.
  
  
  

Mother Earth

Earth Day is celebrated annually to increase awareness and appreciation of the earth's natural environment. Events are planned worldwide and it is celebrated in more than 175 countries. You can read more about Earth Day through Wikipedia.
                   
On Tuesday, April 24 we will:

• Make Earth Day Coffee Filter and Hand print Art
• Discuss how the Earth belongs to all of us and ask "What can we do to help care for it?"
• What do the words recycle, re purpose/reuse, preserve, pollution mean?
• Share our Milk Carton Watering Can to demonstrate how an item can be reused                      
• Use cardboard egg cartons to make Egg Cup Insects.

Ideas for Home:

• Try Recycling crayons! If it's hot outside you can use this method, or this one!
• Include the whole family in recycling at home.
• Plant some seeds or trees. Arbor day is April 27, 2012. Arbor Day Foundation
• More Earth Day ideas here.

Stop to Smell the Flowers

On Tuesday, April 17, we will:

• Read Ten Seeds by Ruth Brown and Big Yellow Sunflower by Frances Barry.
• Plant our own seeds in "Recycled newspaper pots." Idea from Cottage Hill.

My daughter and I recently attended a Green Team Kids event at Spider Web Gardens in Tuftonboro. We had tons of fun and went home with "nature bracelets" and "window sill seed starters." There are monthly events planned for Tuftonboro through October. Check out the facebook page for Green Team Kids events happening in other locations as well.


Why tell children about plant life cycles, when you can plant a garden and SHOW them!

Bunnies!!!

On Tuesday, April 3 we will:

• Read "Knuffle Bunny" by Mo Willems.
• Play "Knuffle Bunny Freeze Dance."
• Sing Hop Little Bunnies (from Everything Preschool)
   
  Verse 1:
  Have your children pretend to sleep while you sing.See those little bunnies sleeping, until its nearly noon,
  Let us gently waken them, with our merry tune,
  oh how still, are they ill, wake up soon,
  
  Verse 2:
  Have your children wake up and jump and clap while singingHop little bunnies, hop, hop, hop
  Hop little bunnies, hop, hop, hop
  Hop little bunnies, hop, hop, hop
  Hop little bunnies, and stop.
• Finger play/song: Little Bunny Foo Foo
• Make Yarn bunnies and paper bag goons.



Ideas for Home:



• We love all the Knuffle Bunny stories! Check out Mo Willems website for some fun activities!
• I found the site PreKinders, which has a lot of great ideas for preschool age children. I really liked the math games, but there is other great ideas too!
• Easter Crafts from Kaboose (a Disney website)

"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." 

~Margaret Atwood