Tot School: Learning Our Colors- Blue and Purple

This is our second week of our Learning Our Colors series.  This week we are learning about blue and purple.  Last week we learned about red and orange, and still to come are yellow and green, and finally brown, white, and black, with a wrap up week at the end.

To begin the week, we went on a blue object hunt.

Our blue collection.

We wanted to use the sticky paper again.  This time, instead of placing it on the table, I hung it on the wall.  Little Guy quickly found out that only light, flat objects would stick.

Only the letters stick!

We read books about the color blue.  One of Little Guy's favorite books is Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle.  As a follow up to One Red Dot from last week, we looked at Blue 2, another pop-up book by David A. Carter.  This book was a little more difficult to find all the hidden 2's, and I'm not sure we ever found them all!  We also read I Love You, Blue Kangaroo by Emma Chichester Clark.

Our book page for blue was a bluebird.  To make the bird, Little Guy first had to go through the bag of feathers and pull out the blue ones.  This was a great beginning sorting activity.  Then we smeared glue onto our paper, and Little Guy got to work.

Adding some feathers.

Don't forget the head.

Our bluebird!

 Some other things we did with the color blue are:

• We wore blue shirts during the week.
• We played with our blue rice sensory bin.
• We played with blue Model Magic.
• We ate blue food, including blueberries and blueberry muffins.

Our blue week was cut short by the long weekend (meaning extra day with Daddy!) and Little Guy not feeling well on one day.  However, since we had recently had a blue day and Little Guy can pretty consistently recognize the color blue, I wasn't too upset.

Halfway through our work week, we switched to the color purple.   Some of the ideas for purple week came from Play Create Explore and some others came from Simple. Home. Blessings.

To begin working with purple, we went on a purple object hunt.

Our purple collection.

We read books about the color purple.  One was Clarence Goes Out West and Meets a Purple Horse by Jean Ekman Adams.  This is a charming book about a pig (Clarence) who becomes great friends with Smoky (the purple horse).  (I know we missed out on Harold and the Purple Crayon.  We will enjoy this book during our rainbow week at the end!)

As fine motor practice, visual discrimination, and to practice some of the alphabet, I had Little Guy look for purple stickers.  We had a large sheet of alphabet stickers in different colors.  Little Guy had to look for the purple letters.  Originally, Little Guy was trying to get them off of the sheet, but it was too big, so he would point it out and I would pull it off the sheet.  As I gave him the sticker, I would tell him the name of the letter.

I want that sticker!

It goes right there!

Hamming it up for the camera!

Last week during our red week, we made this red shaking bottle.  I filled a bottle half full with water, added a couple of tablespoons of dish soap and a couple of tablespoons of red tempera paint.  When it is shaken, it would fill with red bubbles!  Little Guy really enjoyed shaking the bottle.  To use it again, I added a couple of tablespoons of blue tempera paint.

Our red shaking bottle.

Not much is happening yet.

Whoa!   It's purple!

The purple page for our color book was a snail.

Our purple snail!

 Some other things we did with the color purple are:

• We made purple dirt dough using grape Kool Aid, then took it in the bath to make a purple bath.
• We ate purple food, including grapes and plums.
• We put purple beads onto a purple pipe cleaner. 

This activity  is linked to Kids Crafts and Early Learning Link Up!