1) This week the children made a color book. I read them little blue & little
yellow.
 
 The children finger painted and hugged the colors. 
 captions at the bottom were
 Little Blue and Little Yellow hugged and turned Green
 Little Blue and Little Red bumped into each other and turned Purple.
 Little Red and Little Yellow shook hands and turned Orange. 
 
 This was the whole book an the children loved fingerpainting and they are so
proud to bring home a book. 


2) Our special story today was an all-time favorite: 

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

My 3-4's made bear puppets as a tie-in with the story.  We used lunch
bags, round brown construction paper "ears" and crayons.  I also
duplicated a paragraph explaining the story/activity to the parents.

The children pasted the (circle) ears on the lunch bag--you know how to
do this so the bottom of the bag becomes the puppet's mouth. Then they
drew on facial features with the crayons.  All were different--all were
cute.  Then they pasted the little paragraph on the front of the bag
(near the bottom).

" Today we read the story
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
by Bill Martin.
To review this story at home, you might
ask your child to name some of the things
Brown Bear "saw". (A red bird, yellow duck,
blue horse, green frog, purple cat, white
dog, black sheep, goldfish, teacher and 
children). You might also ask your child
about what he or she "saw" at school today!"


On Wednesday, the next time this class meets,
we will read the story again, in a different way.  I plan to
use cut outs of all the animals and people mentioned in the story.
Starting the story with a Brown Bear Puppet, I will continue by holding
up the cut outs :" Blue Horse, Blue Horse what do you see?" ,etc.

During circle I plan to follow the same order as in the book.  Then I
will laminate the cut-outs and place them in the story corner with the
book so the children can "read" it independently.  I'm sure then they
will use any order they wish, but some will probably follow along with
the order they find in the book.


A COLOR REVIEW GAME:

This is our favorite way to review colors at circle time.  Both the
younger 3's and 4's and the older 4's and 5's like this!  I made a
little felt frog, with a wiggle eye in front, to make him fancy!  Then I
made "logs" from different color felt pieces.  We put the frog in the
middle of the flannel board and the logs all around it.  We always say
that Little Frog's FAVORITE game is hide and seek. His FAVORITE place to
hide is in our color logs.  And if we  can sit quietly he just might
hide for us today!  Now, Little Frog is very shy so we must close our
eyes and not peek while he hides!  Then I hide the frog under one of the
colors.  Because I have a large group, I usually point to a color and
say something like "Does anyone think Little Frog might be hiding here
today?  You do!  Well, let's call for him and see!

Then we all chant " Little Frog, Little Frog
Are you in the (color) log?"
I remove the log.  Is he under there?  No?  Where else might he be
hiding?

Etc, until we find the frog.  They NEVER tire of this.  You can also
vary with Mouse/House  and Cat/Hat.

BUMBLEBEE NAME GAME 

We did the Bumblebee name game today, and , as I predicted, the kids
loved it!  I didn't have a bumblebee puppet, and no time to make one!,
so I used a large colorful cardboard cut out of a bumblebee and attached
it with yarn and a paper clip "hook" to a dowel rod.  I used it for a
puppet.

" Biddely, Diddely Bumblebee
Won't you say your name for me?"

The child said his/her name.
I repeated it.  (Ellen)
Then we said ("Hi Ellen!")
Then clap two times.

On to the next child, all around the circle.(This is a little different
from the original idea.  I changed it only because we practice greeting
the children individually each day.  Not only did it help the children
learn each other's names, but it also provided social skills practice.

3) Have you ever seen a lizard??
(I think it is sung to Have you ever seen a lassie)

Have you ever seen a lizard, a lizard, a lizard?
Have you ever seen a lizard all dressed up in PINK?
With PINK eyes, and Pink nose,
And PINK legs and PINK toes.
Have you ever seen a lizard all dressed up in PINK?

Have you ever seen a lizard, a lizard, a lizard?
Have you ever seen a lizard all dressed up in WHITE?
With WHITE eyes, and WHITE nose,
And WHITE legs and WHITE toes.
Have you ever seen a lizard all dressed up in WHITE?

Have you ever seen a lizard, a lizard, a lizard?
Have you ever seen a lizard all dressed up in PURPLE?
With PURPLE eyes, and PURPLE nose,
And PURPLE legs and PURPLE toes.
Have you ever seen a lizard all dressed up in PURPLE?

Have you ever seen a lizard, a lizard, a lizard?
Have you ever seen a lizard all dressed up in BLUE?
With BLUE eyes, and BLUE nose,
And BLUE legs and BLUE toes.
Have you ever seen a lizard all dressed up in BLUE?


Continue uses all the different colors..
KIDs love this song!!

Well everyone wish me luck! Im having all 4 wisdom teeth pulled today and
not looking forward to it!


4) I am an "old" teacher and I try not to be set in my ways.  Alot comming over
the loop are things I have done for years or years ago.  Today we talked
about the shape diamond and the color orange. (On the two other days we have
class we had done red and yellow.)  I poured about 2 inches of room
temperature milk in a glass pyrex lid.  I added 4-5 drops of red food
coloring and near but not on top of it & did the same with yellow food
coloring.  We predicted what would happen.  I then added a few drops of clear
dish soap between the color spots.  What a beautiful surprise!!!!  The cloors
swirl & mix into an orange firework-type explosion.  
After watching it for awhile we took a plastic spoon & simply stired the
mixture to get a pale orange color liquid.  One of the kids ask if it would
work with water.  We tried it but had very disappointing results.  

5) We are starting with the color red and I did something new that worked out
well with the three year olds.  I have a red cloth school bag which I filled
with a number of familiar objects in every color but red.  I told the
children that had brought something to school so I could show them the color
red.  Then I dug into my bag and pulled out one object after another feigning
surprise each time when the object turned out to be somthing other than red.
I said things like "I know I brought something red today." or as I reached
into the back, "This one must be red."  The children thought it was funny and
I encouraged them to try to tell me the color of each of the items I pulled
out.  When the bag was empty I held it out in front of me and shook it hard
upside down.  " That's funny, I was sure I brought something red today."  In
a matter of seconds most of them were tell me, "Your bag is red!"  They
thought it was a big joke.  I borrrowed this idea from "Big Bird's Red BooK"
which is a Golden Book by Cerf which we later read.

6) Carrot orange- cut off the tops of carrots and place it in a shallow dish of
water.Over time the carrot will sprout at the top.   

Play carrot, carrot , corn.  (like duck, duck goose)

  Cut carrots to paint with. White paint on orange paper or orange paint on
white paper.

Do orange prints with the fruit

Color magic
Pour milk into a shallow glass dish. Drop 4-5 drops of red food coloring
into the milk. Drop 4-5 drops of yellow near but, not on the red. You now
have a red area and a yellow area.Drop 2-3 drops of clear dish washing liquid
between the two areas. Watch the action! Voila... orange!