Art Activity: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Trees

The children made coconut trees full of letters like in the story Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. They glued the tree trunk and tree top to their paper, then used letter stickers to finish the tree.

Story Book for August 24, 2009

Our story book for August 24th was Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. A group of lower case letters race to the top of a coconut tree only to fall out when the tree gets too heavy. The uppercase letters come to the rescue of the lower case letters.

Art Activity: Tissue Paper Painting

For this activity we gave the children pieces of colored tissue paper, glue, paintbrushes, and laminating film. The children used the paintbrushes to glue the tissue paper to the laminating film. After these are dried they can be hung in a window to use as a sun catcher.

Story Book for August 21, 2009

Our story book for August 21st was Who Said Red? by Mary Serfozo. A boy is looking for something red. While looking for it, he encounters several other colors.

Art Activity: Chameleon Rubbings

We gave the children crayons and paper with a chameleon outline on it. The children placed their paper on top of a textured rubbing plate and rubbed their crayons over the paper. This made the chameleon look like it had textured scales.

Story Book for August 20, 2009

Our story book for August 20th was A Color of His Own by Leo Lionni. A chameleon doesn't want to keep changing colors, so he decides to stay on a green leaf so that he will stay green forever. However when the leaf changes colors with the seasons, the chameleon does too.

Art Activity: Primary Color Finger Painting

A very simple activity on this day. We gave the children red, blue, and yellow finger paint to work with. The children used their hands to mix the primary colors into secondary colors.

Story Book for August 19, 2009

Our story book for August 19th was Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young. A group of blind mice find something interesting by their pond. Each one touches the object and gives their opinion of what it might be. The interesting object ends up being an elephant.

Art Activity: Cotton Ball Painting

For this activity we gave the children different colors of paint and cotton balls to paint with. For those children that don't like to get paint on their hands, we provided clothes pins for them to hold the cotton balls with.

Story Book for August 18, 2009

Our story book for August 18th was White Rabbit's Color Book by Alan Baker. A white rabbit find bowls of red, blue and yellow paint. The readers learn about primary and secondary colors when the white rabbit dips himself into the paints.

Art Activity: Shape Creations

We gave the children construction paper, glue, and lots of geometric shapes to work with. The children glued their shaped onto the construction paper to make a picture. Afterwards, the children dictated a story to the teachers about their artwork.

Story Book for August 17, 2009

Our story book for August 17th was The Shape of Things by Dayle Anne Dodds. This book shows how geometric shapes make up the things in our surroundings.

Art Activity: Yellow and Blue Playdough

After reading the story Little Blue and Little Yellow we gave the children pieces of yellow and blue playdough to play with. After the children had pinched, pulled, pushed, pounded on the playdough they were able to see how mixing blue and yellow makes the color green.

Story Book for August 14, 2009

Our story book for August 14th was Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni. The story of 2 little blobs of color that are best friends. Little Blue and Little Yellow hug so tightly one day that they turn green.

Art Activity: Shape Stencils

We placed colored pencils, shape stencils and pieces of paper on the art table for the children to explore. They used the stencils to make shapes on their papers, creating their artwork.

Story Book for August 13, 2009

Our story book for August 13th was Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert. A book of zoo animals created from geometric shapes. A great book for learning colors and shapes.

Art Activity: Lacing Shapes

We gave the children laminated shapes with holes punched out along the edges. The children used colored yarn to lace their shape all around the edge.

Story Book for August 12, 2009

Our story book for August 12th was My First Look at Shapes by Dorling Kindersley Publishing. A very simple book with great photographs that introduces children to geometric shapes.

Science Activity: Colored Milk Experiment

We liked the colored milk experiment so we tried it again to see what colors we could make this time.

Art Activity: Shape Stamps

A very simple art activity for the children on this day. The children used rubber shape stamps and colored ink pads to create their artwork.

Story Book for August 7, 2009

Our story book for August 7th was Shape Space by Cathryn Falwell. In this story a young gymnast finds a box full of shapes. She uses the shapes to build a shape friend.

Art Activity: Monochromatic Collage

We gave the children red paper and lots of red objects to glue on their paper for this collage activity. They used all the different shades of red to create their monochromatic collage.

Music Activity: Musical Shapes

First, the teachers used tape to make shapes on the floor. Next, we put on music and had the children dance around the shapes. After dancing for a minute, we turned off the music and called out the name of a shape. The children had to move to that shape and try to get everyone standing on that shape. The kids had to really cooperate with each other in order to fit everyone on one shape.

Story Book for August 6, 2009

Our story book for August 6th was Black Dog, Red House by Lizi Boyd. An introduction to colors is the basis for this story. A boy and his dog tell about their day while introducing 13 colors to the readers.

Science Activity: Color Telescopes

We gave the children cardboard tubes and helped them cover one end with colored cellophane. The allowed the children to view their surroundings in various colors.

Art Activity: Wet Chalk Drawings

For this activity we gave the children colored construction paper and colored chalk that had been sitting in water. We wanted the children to see what effects the water had on the chalk.

Music Activity: Glow Stick Dancing

For this activity we gave each child a glow stick and let them dance around in the dark. They had a blast doing this.

Story Book for August 5, 2009

Our story book for August 5th was My Silly Book of Colors by Susan Amerikaner. This book introduces different colors through the antics of various animals.

Math Activity: Circle Seriation

This was a very simple math activity. We gave the children brass rings of various sizes and asked them to arrange them from smallest to largest.

Art Activity: Lollipops

For this activity we used an old record player to paint with. We gave the children circle shaped paper, taped it to the record player, and then turned on the record player. The children painted on the paper while it spun around on the record player. After the paint dried we attached a stick to the paper and displayed them as lollipops.

Story Book for August 3, 2009

Our story book for August 3rd was What Is Round? by Rebecca Dotlich. A very good picture book that introduces the children to items that are circles and round in shape.