Category Archives: colors

8 Family Friendly Black Friday Activities

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Watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade with my family and I thought I would quickly post some of our non-shopping ideas for Black Friday tomorrow. I know most people love the bargains and the mad rush of running from store to store… but our little family plans on staying in our nice quiet home and will try to avoid the stores for the next few days :).  So for the past few days I have been brainstorming some different activities we could do that would not only officially kick off the Christmas season but also have fun with the “black” theme.

This is what I have come up with so far:

  1. Black Jack Friday: Instead of rolling the dice with what good deals you might be lucky enough to grab, have a game day with the family instead. Pull out all the card games/ board games, pop some popcorn, and just enjoy being together!  
  2. Black Board Friday: Take advantage of this day off from school to play school together. Have little lessons on the value of a dollar, advertising, etc for older kids- or for the little kids have a day celebrating the color black. And of course you don’t have to focus on Black Friday for your learning day- you can also use this time to reinforce/review/enhance skills your child is learning at school.
  3. Black Bag Donations: Grab a black sack (or cardboard boxes) and clean out your house with toys and clothes in good condition your children have outgrown that could be donated to those in need. I love the idea of totally switching gears and turning the shopping madness into a day of giving to others. 
  4. Black Bites: Create a menu of black foods to nibble on throughout Friday. Black licorice, black velvet cake, black berries, olives, and black rice just to name a few!
  5. Play Store: Have your kiddos set up some merchandise (aka run through the house and grab toys, books, etc), find or make some play money, grab a toy shopping cart or basket and a cash register and you are ready to go! For an extra twist have your kids make their own ads- this would be a great writing and art activity. 
  6. North Pole Breakfast: This idea has been floating around the internet for awhile. Have a special breakfast with the family to kick off the holiday season. This is the time we bring back our Elf on the Shelf (although ours is a reindeer).
  7. Decorate for Christmas! For those that decorate for Thanksgiving, Black Friday is the perfect day to set up the tree and enjoy Christmas decorations after the famous day of gratitude.
  8. Black Friday Math: Toddler Approved came up with this WONDERFUL math activity you can do with your kids using your stack of Black Friday ads. Check out her site for more information!
If you do decide to go shopping on Black Friday- be safe! And if you plan on staying home I hope this list helps you to plan a fun family day.
Happy Teaching!

Rainbow Unicorn Halloween Birthday Party

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My daughter is obsessed with rainbows. And unicorns. And her birthday is on Halloween. I wanted to incorporate all of that into one party theme…. and this is what I came up with.

A Rainbow Unicorn Halloween Party!
First- the decorations:
Rainbow streamers, paint card samples, and pom poms everywhere.

 

Even the pumpkins on the front porch were decked out in colored ribbon to fit the theme.

Treats:
Rainbow slush. So good!


 We made rainbow cookies by adding food coloring to different sections of the dough, sectioning them into little beach balls, rolling those balls into a snake, and then spiraling the snake into a circle. 

A picture of our treat table

One useful idea: Use Ikea plates/cups/utensils instead of purchasing paper products. They are better for the environment, pretty stinking cheap, and you can use them again and again! Plus they are in the rainbow colors- perfect for our theme!

Rainbow M&M treat jar/ balloon weight

Cupcake stand decorated with rainbow ribbon. Even the cupcake wrappers are rainbow colors!

 Of course the birthday girl got a special cupcake complete with a mini unicorn.

 Activities:
We started out decorating trick or treat bags with rainbow stickers and markers. Once they finished that,  they could work on making a rainbow fruit loop necklace.

While the kids worked, the adults mingled. I am still shocked at all the people we fit into our house!

Once the kids were done with their bags, Aaron read them the story “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. Its a tradition to incorporate storytime into Boo’s birthday parties. I pick out the book- and Daddy reads it!

We all came dressed in rainbow colors- except Boo who was wearing a rainbow shirt.

In the basement, we had unicorn races. I made my own stick horses using socks and a broomstick and added a foam cone to make it a unicorn.

We also played with a colorful parachute and rainbow balls. The kids had a riot with this activity!

Our culmintating activity was rainbow trick or treating. We have 6 doors upstairs that I decorated with tissue paper. Luckily I had some awesome volunteers who stood behind each door and passed out candy that was the same color as the door.

The actual day of Boo’s birthday (Halloween) I used rainbow streamers to create a path around our entire house leading to a special treasure: a giant diamond paperweight. Fake, of course 🙂 A special treasure for my most valuable treasure!

Happy Teaching! And Happy Party Planning! 🙂

June’s Mommy and Me Made Book- COLORS

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So July is already in full swing… it’s not too late to post our June’s Book project though!! We are transitioning from just Mommy Made to Mommy & Me Made Books. My little one is now able to participate more and more in the book making process. As we learned about a new color, we painted and did a collage in a blank hard bound book. She painted, colored, and glued the pictures all by herself! This book took several weeks to create- starting with our color days back in April. This book is finished- all ready to go with a colorful title!

Our BROWN Day

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Brown day is here! My daughter knew the color brown first (thanks to Dr Seuss’s character Mr. Brown- making appearances in Mr. Brown Can Moo and Hop on Pop) But as mentioned in an earlier post- I am ready to move on to something else (one more color day!!!) We are going to do the color pink tomorrow, and then there are 3 extra pages in her book we will most likely use for some color mixing lessons (when she’s a bit older)

Brown Day ideas:

Wear Brown! My husband and I and little Boo are planning on participating in these color days by wearing the colors!

Work on color book– gluing pictures of brown things into pages of a blank book. I printed 10 pictures of brown things such as a piano, wallet (loves Daddy’s), bear, 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 watercolor paint before we glued down the collage.

Books–
Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle
Mr Brown Can Moo, Can You by Dr Seuss

Snack– chocolate! (that is mommy’s brown day treat!) wheat bread, chocolate milk, beef, crackers

Worksheets– check out enchanted learning for some cute worksheets on the color brown

Other Brown ideas– check out Preschool Express or Step by Step for some cute books, crafts, and other ideas using the color brown

Our WHITE Day

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We are winding down on our color days. I will be honest- I am ready for a curriculum change! So these last poor colors are just not getting the prep that yellow, red, and blue received! We may not have done much, but I will post several ideas we haven’t tried.

Here are some ideas for celebrating this day with your tot:

Wear White! My husband and I and little Boo are planning on participating in these color days by wearing the colors! (I wore blue today…OOPS 🙂 )

Work on color book- gluing pictures of white things into pages of a blank book. I printed 10 pictures of white things like a microwave, polar bear, duck, 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 paint before we glued down the collage. I wasn’t going to since the pages are already white- but painting is a good fine motor activity that she enjoys.

Snack- marshmallows, milk, white bread, vanilla ice cream, white chocolate, coconut

Worksheets- check out enchanted learning for some cute worksheets on the color white

Other White ideas- check out this site for some cute books, crafts, object hunt, and other ideas (this is a must-see site if you plan on teaching colors- there is a page for each color with several wonderful ideas)

Our Black Day

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It has been awhile since we worked on colors. It is AMAZING to me how much language development has taken place since the last time we had a color day (about a month ago). She picked up on the name of the color easily (although can’t pronounce the “bl” blend) and got really excited whenever I pointed out things around the house that were black. She called her black painting “petty” (can’t do the “pr” blend) and told me that she was going to paint her “bee-kee” (binky- she has a major addiction to that thing).

Wear Black! My husband and I and little Boo are planning on participating in these color days by wearing the colors!

Work on color book– gluing pictures of black things into pages of a blank book. I printed 10 pictures of black things such as a TV, black leopard, street, 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 paint before we glued down the collage.

Nursery Rhymes and Songs–

TWO LITTLE BLACK BIRDS

Two little black birds,
Sitting on a hill. (Hold up two hands, fingers spread)
One named Jack, (Flap fingers on one hand)
One named Jill. (Flap fingers on other hand)
Fly away Jack. (Flap fingers on first hand and bring behind back)
Fly away Jill. (Flap fingers on other hand and bring behind back.)
Come back Jack. (Jack flies back out,)
Come back Jill. (Jill flies out)
Two little black birds, (Hold hands out fingers spread)
Back on the hill.
Happy together.
Together still.

WE KNOW THE COLOR BLACK
Tune: “The Farmer in the Dell”

We know the color black.
We know the color black.
Tires and crows and licorice, too.
We know the color black.
Elizabeth Scofield

BAA, BAA BLACK SHEEP

Baa, baa black sheep.
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.

One for the Master.
One for the Dane.
One for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.
(check out this site for some activities with Baa Baa Black Sheep)

Snack– Black Olives, raisins

Worksheets– check out enchanted learning for some cute worksheets on the color black

Other Black ideas– check out this site for some cute books, crafts, and other ideas

Montessori Color Tablets (they look AMAZING!!)

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A few weeks ago I was teaching my husband about Montessori and some of their great manipulatives. I drool over the wooden educational toys- especially the color tablets. Is it the array of bright colors? Or the challenge of sorting them by shade? Who knows! I was so happy to see that other mommys had figured out how to make them (now a password protected site).
We headed on down to the hardware store to pick paint samples. After that, my husband was super excited and insisted on doing the rest of the work himself.
Just look how amazing!

There are 80 tablets all together. There are 10 different colors in 4 shades. And I thought that we could do some early matching activities if we had 2 of each- so all 40 colors have a match! I can’t wait to use them! And thank you hubby!!!! Our little Boo will love that her daddy made her an educational toy! 🙂

Our Orange Day

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Orange Day is the last of the color days for the month of April. We have had so much fun, and my little one can now recognize yellow, blue, purple, and brown and can say half of the color names that we have worked on (except orange and green- and those just happen to be the last two colors) I am so proud of her! Here is our wonderful day in orange!

Wear Orange! My husband and I are both planning on participating in these color days by wearing the colors!
Work on color book– gluing pictures of orange things into pages of a blank book. I just printed 10 pictures of orange things such as a pumpkin, tiger, carrots an orange stroller, 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 paint in her book before we glued down the collage.

Color Squares– I will introduce purple, green, and orange color squares (I have these already to use but I just forgot! We will use them this weekend as a color reminder matching game.)

Here are some ideas I would like to try with her in the future:

  • orange stamp painting (we have done this before, just not today!)
  • play relay races with orange construction cones
  • learn the nursery rhyme “Peter, peter pumpkin eater”
  • orange play dough, orange bath paints, orange scavenger hunt, read books about the color orange
  • make the color green using red and yellow (ice cubes, paint, water)
  • make a necklace with orange beads
  • draw with orange sidewalk chalk
  • make freshly squeezed orange juice
  • eat goldfish crackers and cheddar cheese

Check out these websites for more green fun!
Preschool Express
Enchanted Learning
Step By Step

Our Green Day (also known as Earth Day)

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So Wednesday was green day and it just happened to land on Earth day! It was a total coincidence! We had a great time celebrating- here is a list of our activities:
Wear Green! My husband and I are both planning on participating in these color days by wearing the colors!
Work on color book- gluing pictures of green things into pages of a blank book. I just printed 10 pictures of green things such as a tree, Oscar the Grouch, frog, beans, 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 a green marker before we glued down the collage.

Color Squares- I will introduce purple, green, and orange color squares (I have these already to use but I just forgot! We will use them this weekend as a color reminder matching game.)

Here are some ideas I would like to try with her in the future:

  • green vegetable trays as snacks
  • there are so many cute Earth day crafts that I have seen online!
  • do some gardening
  • green play dough, green bath paints, green scavenger hunt, read books about the color green
  • make the color green using blue and yellow (ice cubes, paint, water)
  • make a necklace with green beads
  • draw with green sidewalk chalk
  • read our one of our current favorites- Green Eggs and Ham!

Check out these websites for more green fun!
Preschool Express
Enchanted Learning
Step By Step

Green Day also happened to land on playgroup day- check out these ADORABLE bird nest snacks made from Grandma! Aren’t they a perfect earth day snack?

Our PURPLE Day

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Tuesday was Purple Day at our house! It was a busy day with lots of exploration time outside since the much needed arrival of warm weather.

Here is a summary of our day with the color purple.
Wear Purple! My husband and I are both planning on participating in these color days by wearing the colors!
Work on color book– gluing pictures of purple things into pages of a blank book. I just printed 10 pictures of purple things such as a purple binky, grapes, purple flowers, 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 do some purple painting before we glued down the collage.

Color Squares– I will introduce purple, green, and orange color squares (I have these already to use but I just forgot! We will use them this weekend as a color reminder matching game.)

Here are some ideas I would like to try with her:

  • make the color purple using blue and red (ice cubes, paint, water
  • go on a purple hunt around the house/neighborhood. bring along the digital camera to snap these blue objects and create a slideshow of your days findings or print the pictures in a book
  • learn the nursery rhyme- little jack horner and eat plums!
  • eat purple popsickle, grapes, and drink grape juice
  • read books about the color purple
  • make a necklace with purple beads
  • draw with purple sidewalk chalk
  • Use coffee filters, a little water and purple markers to make flowers

Check out these websites for more purple fun!
Preschool Express
Enchanted Learning
Step By Step



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