The Colors Black and Brown

With weather being so nice last week and a few sick kiddos along with my allergies acting up this week, I decided to combine these two colors since we didn't get as much done as I would have liked to during the days.

These colors were a little harder to do with the tots because there isn't a lot of black things for little ones; however, we have had lots of practice reviewing our other colors and enjoying the beautiful weather outside!

Our characters for the color black were Mickey and Minnie of course! In the morning at arrival the the tots were able to play with Mickey Mouse clubhouse (an awesome yard sale find at my husband's boss' house!) or play with stuffed characters: Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto. They also had the choice to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on Disney.  I recorded several of these episodes so I could pick out color related ones.

Our brown character was Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street. However, out of all the characters we have, he is not one of them so I left out the Mickey Character items both weeks.  We also got out a cowboy set of figurines we had for them to free play.


Working on Writing:  We wrote with sidewalk chalk.  We colored pictures from Brown Bear Brown Bear. 
   
We colored a black picture and wrote a black entry in our journals.
We read about Elmer the Elephant and colored our own elephant bright colors!
 
We colored and painted our Mother's Day gift: flowers made out of coffee filters.  This activity took us a couple days to finish.

Working on Words/Letters: We practiced and reviewed our names almost daily as well as color words.  We also read alphabet books and books about colors.  We reviewed our letters on our word wall and watched LeapFrog Letter Factory and color videos on youtube.
Listening to Reading: We read Brown Bear Brown Bear and colored several pictures to go along with this story. A couple days, I took outside a box of books for the tots to choose from for me to read outside to them.  They loved this! I am sure we will do this more often this summer!  Their favorite is No David.
Reading to Self/with a Partner:  I redid our reading area and added several new books for the tots to read and look at during their free time.  I also allowed them to picture read the books outside in the box.  They sat at our new Cars table and read them!
The Colors book to the left is one of their favorite books to read to each other and by themselves.  They love pointing at the pictures and saying what they see and what color the object is.
Bible: Last week we focused more on sin and what we do that God does not like such as biting, hitting, taking toys away from our friends etc. We also talked about how God wants us to play with our friends such as playing nicely, sharing, taking turns, helping pick up our toys, etc. This week we focused on how God loves us no matter what we do or have done.  He forgives and loves us unconditionally and he wants us to love our friends and family the same way!
Other Activities: We played outside a lot the last couple weeks! We played in our toy castle playhouse, road bikes/toy cars, ate lunch and snack outside several days, and took lots of walks as well as tried out the big playground across the street!
We also went on a Bear Hunt while learning the Cool Bear hunt song. They loved this song along with learning Tootie Ta, Hokey Pokey, and Ring Around the Rosie.  We also played "If you hear my voice..." This game is similar to Simon Says except they have to listen to the teacher to find out what they are supposed to do.

The Color Orange

This week we are focusing on the color orange! Our characters are Zoe and Ernie because their skin colors are orange!
Working on Words/Letters:  Orange! Some of the activities we did while working on words and letters are:
*Reviewing the words on our word wall and adding orange to our word wall
*Doing a science project that included mixing red and yellow water to make orange:
Step 1: Get your supplies together-three clear glasses or cups, yellow food coloring, red food coloring (I used the gel kind so the kiddos could mix it for me.),water in two of the cups, two stirrers 
Step 2: Allow the children to mix the red in the water. 

Step 3: Allow the children to mix the yellow in the water.

Step 4: Pour the yellow water into empty cup.
Step 5: Pour red into the cup you just poured yellow into.

Step 6: Watch as the water turns orange.  Add yellow or red to make the water the shade of orange that you want.

*Reviewing our names by singing our individual name songs when we got to our letter on the word wall

*Singing the color songs off youtube that teaches us not only the color but also how to spell the color word
*Watching Puppy Dog Alphabet

Working on Writing: Below are some of the activities we worked on while learning the color orange for writing:
*The tots mixed red and yellow paint in a ziplock bag.  Then they wrote 'letters' and 'shapes' on the outside of the bags. No mess writing practice!


*Draw an orange picture
*Write an orange journal page- the tots tried drawing their very own circle after singing the circle song on youtube (havefunteachingcircle).  During this song they tried drawing large and small circles in the air.  When the song was over I had them try drawing their own and helped those that needed it.  I then told them if they colored inside the circle they would get a sticker.  I made my own circle and demonstrated what I meant by that.  I then showed them that if they colored outside of the circle, they would only get a check mark for trying.   All of them got a circle because they all tried their best to color within the circle!


Listening to Reading: This week, I sat out several old and new books out about shapes, colors, and alphabet and then allowed them to pick which story they wanted me to read.  A couple of their favorite stories they chose were: Soft Shapes, Elmo's Guessing Game About Colors,
I love the soft shape book because they can tell me the shape on each page as well as the color of the shape!
I also really liked Elmo's Guessing Game book because it goes along with how I am teaching the children their colors using Sesame Street characters. Elmo's hints are what color certain characters are.  The kiddos are able to guess most of the colors by remembering each character!

We watched the following youtube video which was great because they were able to follow along with the words on the screen: Busy Beavers!


Bible: We are learning about The Fiery Furnace.  We watched a youtube video about it.  We discussed the importance of worshiping only God and spent extra time in worship.  We read different children Bibles stories about it.  

Extras: On Monday, as I introduced the color orange to them,  I decided to make an orange lunch: mandarin oranges, carrots and grilled cheese sandwiches. We also pointed out orange items throughout the room and outside.