The Color Blue

In the morning as they arrive and eat breakfast, I have blue manips out for them to play with: MegaBlocs, Legos, Sesame Street toys, etc.

After they arrive, we play outside for awhile if the weather is nice.

When we come inside, we head downstairs to day care.  First, we have a morning snack.  Then, start on our groups.  (I used to not start on these until right before lunch, but being pregnant, I am trying to not lift them into their seats as often.)

Working on Words/Letters: This week's word we are focusing on is the color word blue.  We sing the color song: B.l.u.e. Spells Blue song (on Youtube).  Then, I showed them each of their name tags, and they guessed who's name it was.  After guessing correctly, we sung that child's name song.  We repeated until we have sung each child's name.  If they struggle with a name, sometimes we go over it again.  After names, we learn new words.  I looked up blue items on Google images that I don't think the children know about yet and some that they are really familiar with so that they guess some right each time.  I try to do each of these reviews daily because I feel the more you repeat, the more they learn it.

Working on Writing: Day 1: We colored with blue markers. (Again they had the choice to use colored pencils or crayons.) 

Day 2: We wrote in our journals our blue page.  On this journal entry we drew a picture of an ocean because they talk about oceans being blue in our B.l.u.e song. Again they had the choice to use colored pencils or crayons. (Markers would go through on our journal pages so I don't give these as an option on journal days.)  

Day 3:  They made a blue picture using blue markers,crayons, and colored pencils.

Day 4: We made a journal entry to go along with our story Cookie Monster Cleans Up.  I wrote on their paper their name and washes.  Then, they each told me what they washed. 

 Day 5: We colored with sidewalk chalk outside.

Listening to Reading: The stories we read this week are: Parts from these old Sesame Street books.  We read the parts about Cookie and Grover because both of them are blue.  One focused on Grover's body parts so we also watched The Best of Elmo because there is a part in it that focuses on body parts. We read: Cookie Monster Cleans Up, (You can see the writing activity we did with this story below.) Going Up with Grover, and Sesame Street Let's Eat. We also watched Let's Talk with Puppy Dog.  This video is amazing because it has a whole section on colors, shapes, and body parts.  (All are items we are focusing on this week, and the children love Puppy Dog!)

We usually read other books throughout the week during other parts of the day as well that does not pertain to what we are learning.  If a child hands me a book to read I rarely say no.  I try to stop what I am doing to read unless I am in the middle of diaper changes, preparing lunch or snack, or in the middle of working with another child.




Reading to Self/or a Buddy: Every day after lunch, they have the option to sit and read at our reading center or pretend to be the teacher and play with alphabet chart and name tags.  Below are several blue stuffed animals that they were able to cuddle with while reading.  (Cookie was our main character this week along with Grover! Somehow Grover disappeared before picture was taken.)

Bible: Our Bible story this week is Jesus Calms the Storm.  We have done this story before, but you can never review Bible stories too many times.  I liked this story because we are focusing on water and oceans to go along with our blue theme.  The toddlers loved acting out this story so much that we acted it out every day! We pretended to be in a boat and made our arms waves and rain (the storm and waves moving).  We pretended to be sleeping (Jesus falling asleep in the boat.) etc.

Extra Activities: We did lots of counting activities within our stories we read.  We played in blue 'ocean' water. The tots practiced scooping out water and pouring it into another container. (a standard two year olds should know how to do.)  We matched blue items. We went on a blue scavenger hunt. We built with blue Legos and MegaBlocs.  We watched the Magic School Catches a Wave to go along with our ocean theme for our Bible story. We ate blueberries for snack and lunch this week!