Color Theory Part I

Helloooo!! How’s everyone??? I haven’t been in this blog for a week!  Oh well, it must be the Easter vacation hangover or probably enjoying much of our Spring break :)

I’m participating in this Spring Blog Hop, it sounds fun!  That is why we did colors today to jumpstart our Spring activities :) 

I decided to take this one slow, so we only did two color schemes and skipped the colorwheel.  I’m using the The ABC’s of Art to discuss the primary and secondary colors (we’ll be doing other colors next).  So I took our red, yellow and blue paints to create secondary colors.  I made use of cotton buds LOL as our paint brushes.  Since we’ll just be mixing paints, it would save me a lot of work since I can dispose them easily rather than using paint brushes where I have to wash them after we use them.

Mine is on the upper portion.  I made sure to have my own work too… and surprisingly, I enjoyed it!

With all colors available (primary and secondary), we made a rainbow :)  These are the colors that makes a rainbow in order from the colorwheel.

This is my son’s version of rainbow colors.

Next, we’ll do the colorwheel and study other color schemes like complimentary colors, warm and cool colors, and maybe neutral colors as well.

Linking to:

Montessori Monday 
Teach Beside Me
Montessori Spring Blog Hop

Volcanoes! (FREE Picture Cards!)

My son's class worked on volcanoes a few weeks ago.  They talked about Mt. Vesuvius and watched videos of the eruption.  During their circle time they made a volcano and made it erupt.  He can’t stop talking about it for days!

Anyway, he was begging me to do it at home so I just have to give in.

But first we looked at pictures of volcanoes around the world and talked about “active” volcanoes.  You can DOWNLOAD the file for FREE from our SUBSCRIBER PAGE.

If you are not yet a subscriber, click here to SUBSCRIBE and get direct access to our growing list of FREE printables.

Repurposing Flashcards: Shapes and Colors

When Mavi was about 1, I had these flashcards which was given to me by a friend.  I couldn’t find any use for them at that time because Mavi wasn’t into flashcards.  He easily gets bored with them.  So what I did was use it as a control card for sorting. 

First I made a replica of all the shapes in the cards using a cardstock.  I made sure that the shape cut-outs will have the same color and size to the ones on the flash cards.  

 

Then I presented the cards to Mavi as I introduce the shapes.  I started with only 2 or 3 shapes so he won’t get overwhelmed.    Then as I place the cut-outs, I instructed him to match them with flashcards. 

It was really interesting because I’ve witnessed the level concentration my son had on sorting.  He examined the shapes well, eyeing each card carefully  then cautiously place the cut-outs on the correct control card.  I didn’t interfere, I just sat there and observe him as he sorted out the shapes.  There were instances he gets confused, then that’s the time I offered my assistance.  And as he progressed, he started developing his own technique in sorting, which as really an amazing thing to watch from a 1.5 years old. 

So you might want to try this in case you have excess flashcards and have no idea on how to repurpose it in your home “school”.

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner

Color Your Homeschool with Pasta!

So there’s so much you cian do with pasta :)  It was once a favorite learning tool in our home. Since I’m quite frugal, I barely give him toys from stores unless necessary, instead I made use of what we in kitchen (LOL) to save money and to be practical as well.

With that said, I made these colorful (rainbow) pasta when Mavi was just a teeny weeny.  We used it in so many ways! And here’s how I done it:

Gather various shapes of pasta like bowtie, penne, Rotelle, macaroni, shells etc.  Then measure the right amount of pasta you wanted to use and put them in a zipper bag (Ziploc).  Add around 1 tablespoon of alcohol and 5-10 drops of food coloring into the bag.  Close the bag, and mix (shake the bag) until everything is covered with color.  Leave the pasta inside the bag for 5-10 minutes.  To dry them up, cover a tray with cookie sheet or kitchen towel.  Carefully pour the colored pasta and spread them in single layer.  And that’s just about it!

 

So here’s how we use them:

1.  For color sorting activity.  I have this egg carton box which I painted with watercolor :)  He matches the pasta to that of the color in the egg box.

           

2.  Stringing and Beading.  Good for penne pasta :)

        

3. Playdough Tower

       

4.  Counters.  Again using an egg carton box as our tray.  I wrote numbers at the bottom of the box and he’ll put the right amount of pasta based on the number written. 

      

Those rainbow pasta are really beautiful!  How I miss them :)

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Preschool Corner