But first, I have a question for all you with little ones out there..... would it be more effective to have the color days the same week as a holiday (red-Valentines/4th of July, orange- Halloween, yellow- Thanksgiving, green- St Patricks Day or Christmas, blue- Earth day/ 4th of July, purple- Easter, pink- Valentines, etc) or to teach them all together during a rainbow unit?
Wear Red! My husband and I are both planning on participating in these color days by wearing the colors!
Work on color book- gluing pictures of red things into pages of a blank book. I just printed 10 pictures of red things such as a red strawberry, red car, red rose, Elmo, etc. I am going to have my little one help me glue/place these items on 2 pages of a 20 page book. I had my daughter color in her book with different red crayons before we glued down the collage.
Red Squares- I will introduce red, yellow, and blue color squares to my little one today (paint cards from Home Depot). Every day that we are working on colors I will take out these cards, label them with her verbally, and have her try and point out the yellow, red, or blue ones. By the end of this week I am hoping for mastery on these three colors... but we will see!! She is really not interested in playing with the squares so I need to think of more large motor ways to tie in her learning (she is a little athlete!)We will experience RED again when she is feeling more herself!
Here are some ideas I would like to try with her in the future:
- little red hen nursery rhyme and activities
- red fruit treats such as dried apples, raspberry fruit roll-ups, strawberries, etc. and a little red candy such as licorice (my favorite!)
- sunset paintings with red, yellow, and orange paints with black silhouettes out of construction paper.
- discuss fire safety - create an emergency exit plan for your home, visit a fire station, stop drop and roll, etc.
- there is a million things you could do with red apples- eat them, cut in half and stamp, talk about Johnny Appleseed, make applesauce, pick apples, count apples, drink apple juice, etc.
- host a red carpet family/friends event- roll out a red hallway rug or red towels, blankets- be creative! Everyone comes all dressed up, take pics on the red carpet, have a talent show, and don't forget about passing out awards
- anything Elmo! unless you are like me and have seen one too many videos of Elmo's World!
- red play dough, red bath paints, red scavenger hunt, read books about the color red
I'm not sure how old your daughter is, but I started really working colors with my 20 month old about 4 months ago and she seems to know them fairly well already. I did a purple and a yellow day and then stopped doing color days and just started talking a LOT about colors all the time. (As in, "see the ladybug - it's red with black dots." or "Did you see the bus? It was yellow.")
ReplyDeleteWe also play a lot of matching games with colors (see my blog http://theadventuresofbear.blogspot.com for some of the things we've done). Hope that works.
I think your ideas for your color days are great and will be using some of them with my daughter.
My daughter is 25 months and I tried making a colour book with her like the one you suggested. We've done a colour a day- sometimes two colours a day. She really enjoys the painting and the gluing, so I'm just following her lead. I find she's really learning her colours through the making of this colour book. Thanks so much for the idea!
ReplyDeleteI've never tried having an all out colour day but I find through reinforcement she is learning her colours- I mention to her the colours of the things in her environment such as a green box and red chair, and now every time she sees that green box she has to tell me it's green, and she points to the red elmo chair and says red.
I have a fairly new blog but feel free to check it out :) I'll be posting a lot of early childhood related activities:
http://handmadebeginnings.blogspot.com
Thanks for the comment! Don't get me wrong I think your curriculums are fabulous, I think it's great to set learning goals and I've really benefitted from your colour posts. The great thing about being a home teacher is some days you can follow the curriculum to a tee and other days, depending on your child's mood/well being you can do one or two activities- which is exactly what you've been doing :D
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked in the daycare we'd have progress reports after each term, so you can see where the child should be developmentally at 2.5 years, and 3 years, etc. Don't stress if your child doesn't know all her colours within two weeks time :). I'm not sure what you'll be teaching next month but if you do something like shapes for example, then you can also revisit colours by talking about the colours of the shapes.
I look forward to seeing what more you have in store!