Color words, patterning, and science

Last week we began our first foray into sight words--in this case, color words! While some of these words are more complicated than typical consonant-vowel-consonant words, they're actually pretty easy for the students to decipher once they get the hang of it. They're learning to put their phonics knowledge to work as they connect sounds with colors.

This "cheat sheet" of sorts was on the board all week to help students figure out their color words.

One of the most fun things we did with color words was a color hunt around Mrs. Viall's room. The students were given a plain white sheet of paper, on which all of the color words had been written. They had to search the classroom for squares of paper in each color, then glue it onto the appropriate spot. (The students didn't know it, but they helped with the hunt earlier in the day when they cut up construction paper in varying colors -- great practice with those scissor skills!)

It made my heart so happy to see how they worked together on this, without even being asked! The students who finished first eagerly offered to help their friends who were stuck on their last couple of colors. That's the best lesson of all!

We learned about color-mixing, though most of our children knew a little about this already. After painting rainbows, we mixed some of the remaining colors to create green, orange, and purple. 

And finally, we created "new" colors of play-doh by kneading together two primary(ish) colors. 

They loved it!

Along with colors, we introduced A-B patterns. They caught onto this skill very quickly, and some even progressed to AAB and ABC patterns! Patterning is an important pre-math skill.

(I wasn't able to get photos of  Mrs. Shepard's class doing this activity, but hopefully she will send me some soon!

Finally, we got out magnifying glasses and conducted a closer investigation of the bug shells we found on the playground last week, plus one huge beetle we borrowed from K4. 

I let them take their magnifying glasses and walk around the room, looking at ordinary items close up. It was fun seeing what they gravitated toward -- even the plain, old wall was more interesting under the magnifying glass. 

This Venn Diagram helped us compare/contrast the bugs we examined.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't recognize our first lost tooth of the school year! This tooth was SO ready to come out; in fact, both of her bottom teeth were. She lost the first one the previous night at home, and tooth #2 came out as soon as she took her first bite of lunch!

Naturally, this was fascinating to the other students! :)

Going home with a brand new smile!