Our Colorful preschool

Today was our week to teach preschool. Our letter was "C" and we did everything around Colors.

There are so many fun activities to do with colors. A few weeks ago I found some fun ideas to do with Legos, and since we have an abundance of those in our house this was easy to do.

 I made a Lego rainbow picture, a Lego patterns sheet, and a Lego color sorting sheet.

I've seen paint chip color sorting activities and I really wanted to make one. Thing was I wasn't ever able to get to the hardware store to get the paint chips cards. I decided that I didn't need paint chips to make one, I could use a sturdy piece of cardboard and paper scraps.

I LOVE the way it turned out! I love using clothespins!. It helps with fine motor skills while they are learning their colors. The big kids like to mix up the clothespins and have Rebecca sort it. This has had lots of use and it is holding up really nicely.

Today at preschool we did color sorting with paper plates that I colored with crayons and a bag full of colorful toys to sort.

This was something the kids really liked. Rebecca did this 4 times with me yesterday and the boys at preschool did it a 2nd time while the girls finished their craft project.

For our craft project we made paper plate rainbows.

These were really easy to make. I cut paper plates in a rainbow shape. Then I drew the colors of the rainbow with a crayon on the plates. I cut up construction paper into little squares. To make you give the kids a pile of colored squares, a glue stick and a paper plate rainbow. When they were done I tied a piece of string on the top so they could hang them up at home.
Some kids were more into this then others. I ended up sending home some colored squares for the kids to glue on at home if they wanted to.

We also did some color experiments with water. I started with 3 cups and dyed the water red, blue and yellow. We used those 3 colors to make green, orange and purple. The kids thought this was fun to watch.

I found a recipe to make sidewalk paint with cornstarch, water and food coloring. (I did't measure, just mixed until I got the consistency that I like.) The kids all picked their favorite color and I made it for their paint. They had a great time painting the driveway. It was interesting to watch the way the kids painted. The girls sat quietly and worked on making a shapes. The boys wanted to paint on each others pictures and ended up running around flinging the paint on the sidewalk.

I love the way this sidewalk paint dries. The colors get brighter when it dries. The best part is that the paint comes off very easily with rain or the hose. I learned the hard way that sidewalk paint made with flour, water and food coloring does NOT come off the driveway very easily!

For snack I was going to go buy fruits of all the colors of the rainbow, but wanted to do a low to no budget preschool day, so I changed my snack to Fruity Cheerios which we already had.

I took paper plates and drew colored wedges on them the same color as the cheerios. The kids sorted by color on their plates, then ate them. It cost way less then buying all that fruit and was so much faster to do.

I've always loved doing learning activities with the kids, but over the last few years I have done less of them as I've become busier with the older kids activities. Doing this co-op preschool with Rebecca has helped me get back into making learning activities for her and we are both loving it!