Bilingual Wednesdays- Colors in Spring

Spring is here and we can take advantage of this teachable moment to introduce or review some color words  in Spanish. I made a domino to review colors with my niece and a set of Spanish colors posters for you!

Tell children they will learn the Spanish form of these words:

Red / rojo

Blue / azul

Yellow / amarillo

Orange / naranja

Green / verde

Purple/ violeta

Light blue/ celeste

Pink/ rosa

To prepare the posters you need to print them onto cardboard and laminate for durability. Then..

*Go for a color hunt around home or class.

*Let kids cut and paste pictures from old magazines and make a collage. Ask them about the colors they can see in their pictures. 

*Play "I spy" using the posters.

*Invite children to sort manipulatives according to color.

*Make a mural using their favorite color.

* Ask and answer "How many red/ rojas things can you see?"

* Using commands.."point to a yellow/amarillo flower" "pick up a green/verde crayon"

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The Party at the End of the Rainbow

 In celebration of St. Patrick's Day we thought we would take you on a journey to that lucky place at the end of the rainbow!  Perhaps the colorful ideas will inspire a golden day for your children!

Chickabug has put together a great collection of rainbow party games, crafts, and activities for a celebration.

Play Create Explore  - Rainbow Sensory Bin/Sorting Activity

Rainbow of Ribbon Party Games from Giggleberry Creations

Rainbow Jello from Hoosier Homemade

The Decorated Cookie - Rainbow Kabobs

 

Rainbow Party from Homemade by Jill

How Does She? -  Rainbow Party

Birthday Party Ideas for Kids suggests several games such as: Rainbow Tag, Rainbow Color Scavenger Hunt, and Rainbow Rain Relay.

Musical Rainbow -Lay various colored circles in a line on the floor.  Have the children walk between them while the music plays.  When the music ends they must stand on a color.  Call out one color.  The child standing on that color wins a prize.  Play until all of the children have a chance to win!

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Bilingual Wednesdays- Colors in the circus

Many has been said to the learning of a second/foreign language.  Recent studies have shown that the best time for a child to learn another language is the first three to four years of life.

Why?

Because language learning is a natural process when children are young. Children will learn a new language by listening, seeing, imitating and practicing.

Ronald Kotulak, author ofInside the Brain says in his book"During the first three years of life, the foundations for thinking, language, vision, attitudes, aptitudes, and other characteristics are laid down,"  

I have been teaching bilingual children for 20 years. I read many books and tried different approaches but what really worked for me was taking into account children's interests.

This week we are going to learn 3 new colors  : orange, purple and green.

As I prepared this lesson for my niece, and she likes circus, clowns, acrobats, juggles, dancers...

I related the new colors  to the circus theme.

I bought some plastic noses and color some orange, purple and green. I hide them around the house and asked her to go on a "clown nose hunt". She found all the noses and was surprised because she thought all the noses would be red. 

I taught her the name of the new colors:

Orange= Naranja

Purple = Violeta

Green= Verde

We used the posters to review and practice the colors when "making words" with the letter tiles cards.

These are the posters and the letter tiles cards for the theme

Then we played with this file folder game.

 

You can download the files in my blog

See you there!

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Winter White Writing Activities & Crafts

Welcome! New to ABC and 123? Please check out our FAQ in the sidebar.

Are you still studying snow or, like me, are you SO over Winter already?!?! Well, these great learning and creating activities might inspire you to give the chill another chance before kicking off all things Spring!

K is for Kindergarten used the fictional book Snowmen at Night to introduce a fun writing project.

A Place Called Kindergarten used the non fiction book The Story of Snow to kick off an informational gathering/research activity and a neat follow up craft.

Ten Kids and a Dog used their handprints and some white paint to make adorable winter scenes.

Off 2 Kindergarten used the ficitional book The Snow Globe Family to inspire creative writing with her students.

Our Crafts~N~Things focused on the natural science part of winter by experiencing animals and their habitats.

While several of these links are from kindergarten teachers I believe the activities can be adapted appropriately for most preschool and elementary age students.

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Play To Learn: Hot Dots

Welcome to Play To Learn!

This week I wanted to talk about Hot Dots! I’m sure you’ve all heard about these fun little cards, but my kids love them so much I thought they deserved a post all to their own!

When your student clicks on one of the dots the pen will flash green and say “Great Job” or “You are Correct”, if you get the wrong answer the pen will flash red and say “Sorry, try again!” They also have a new set for young kids along with a cute “Ace” the dog pen. His eyes light up green when they’re right and he barks!

Educational Insights sells several different pre-made cards, or you can purchase Educational Insights Hot Dots with Talking Hot Dots Pen, and make your own cards as well! You can also download the cards I’ve made here:

• Long and Short Vowel Sounds
• Beginning Consonants
• Beginning Blends Practice
• CVC Word Practice

The Hot Dots Jr. Getting Ready for School kit is awesome, it has a whole set of fun cards that will help your kids practice key learning skills while having fun at the same time!

This is such a fun way to practice math facts, learn letters and sounds, counting skills and more! They have cards for just about every subject out there and they make learning fun!

If you’re interested, I have a giveaway going on this week for a FREE set of Hot Dots and Ace pen!

If you have more ideas to share, or would like to be included in future “Play To Learn” posts, please email me at homeschoolerconfessions {at} gmail {dot} com, we’d love to hear from you!

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Play To Learn: Education Cubes

Hi and welcome to Play To Learn!

I’m so excited to share a new game that’s all about learning with you today! My good friend Mama Jenn just launched her new Education Cubes website where you can download TONS of different printables for learning with her education cubes and it’s perfect for my Play To Learn posts!

Education Cubes are fun educational printable cards that are to be used with Stack-N-Smile Photo blocks. Mama Jenn has created cards for just about any subject you can ask for! What I love most about the Education Cubes is that they’re fun! All my kiddos loved these and seriously, if learning can be this much fun count me in!

So far she has the following available:

• Early Learning: Alphabet, Calendar, Colors, (Numbers & Shapes coming soon)
• Language Arts: Alphabet, Dolch Site Words, Word Families (SWR Spelling coming soon)
• Math: Addition, Subtraction, Measurement, Numbers, Ordinal & Roman Numerals, (Multiplication, Division and Shapes are coming soon)
• Science: Earth Science (Biology & Chemistry coming soon)
• Geography: US Geography, US History (World Geography & World History coming soon)
• Electives: Bible & Spanish
• Misc: Christmas

She was even nice enough to create a set of them for my Letter of the Week curriculum!

My daughter had so much fun rolling the cubes then saying the letter that each picture started out with, it was a great way to review letter sounds.

I have to say that Mama Jenn definitely found a great way to make math fun! My kids loved rolling their dice! She currently has addition, subtraction, measurement, Numbers, Ordinal & Roman Numerals and is working on multiplication, division and shapes.

I’m doing a giveaway for Education Cubes this week too and wanted to share it with you all too!

If you have more ideas to share, or would like to be included in future “Play To Learn” posts, please email me at homeschoolerconfessions {at} gmail {dot} com, we’d love to hear from you!

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Color Activities: Purple

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Please check out our FAQ in the left sidebar.

First published in 1955, one classic book that always comes to mind when thinking about lessons for the color purple is this one, the start of a whole series featuring Harold and his purple crayon.  Here are some suggested lessons from the author's website.  We also like this one on KinderArt®.  The book's publisher also provides a coloring page and use your imagination to finish the drawing page.

More recent additions to literature on the color purple include:

The author's site has a downloadable coloring sheet of Lilly and her purple plastic purse and a maze.  Teaching Heart has a nice thematic unit crossing several curriculum areas, complete with many downloadable resources and PDF's appropriate for K-1 students. 

This titles continues on a popular book series started with Pinkalicious, but is recommended with some hesitation.  The teasing, bullying, and conflict portrayed in the narrative may be unnecessary to introduce to very young children, it does end on a possitive note but the reference to purple is minimal. 

As Allie from No Time for Flashcards stated in her post mentioning this title, "I think it’s better to let children know that they don’t have to be ashamed of someone is bullying them, to ask for help and to overcome it. This book can be a useful tool for that message."

This book was featured on the classic children's PBS show Reading Rainbow, but the video and teacher's guide is no longer available except by purchase.  Learn more about Amy Hest on her author's website.

Step By Step Childcare has a Purple Theme that includes: songs and fingerplays, arts & craft activities, thematic ideas, and quick starts for any color day.

Preschool Express and Childfun both have Purple Themes for early childhood aged students.

More Purple Activities:

Color Mixing: In two containers use food coloring to make water red and blue.  Use an eye dropper to add drops of the colored water into a third container containing clear water.  See how many drops it takes of each to turn the water purple.

Grape Prints: Students dip an empt toilet paper roll into a shallow container of paint.  Make circle prints onto paper, clustering them together into bunches of grapes.  When the paint has dried the circles can be colored in or filled with a variety of purple collage materials.  A stem and leaves can also be added.  You can also make a different version by painting the grapes with carrot rounds and purple paint.

Planting Purple Flowers: Make purple flower shapes out of purple construction paper.  Program each with either a numeral or dots to represent a specific number.  Tape to popsicle sticks.  Take an old shoebox, turn it over and cut slits in the bottom, the same number as you have of programed flowers.  Write a numeral by each, students have to place the correctly number flower into the slit.

Purple Snacks:

Plums
Purple Grapes
Eggplant, just be sure you look at it, touch, and smell it beforehand so everyone can see the lovely skin.
Purple Cabbage
Grape Juice to Drink or to Make Popsicles with
Grape Jelly on Crackers/Bread/Toast

Have you done a purple color activity?  Let us know in the comment section and share your link so we can all come see it.  Don't forget to enter our two great giveaways, links at the top of this column!

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Silver & Gold

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The official Hershey site has a collection of craft ideas made from silver and gold wrapped Kisses.

Hang a disco ball and dance the evening away, with your children, under the silver sparkles.

Tin Foil Sculptures

My (List Maker Katie) oldest 2 children had fun creating tin foil characters using the instructions we saw in Family Fun.

Practice sorting and counting nickels, dimes, and quarters.

Elise has put together, and shared, a Christmas themed counting and patterning lesson with a dash of sparkle!

Make a holiday wreath , like this Modern Mom's, out of silver bells or golden balls.

Don't Eat the Paste is on to something shimmery with these glittered recycled ornaments.

Put together a Gold Cone Angel with instructions from Craftbits.

Stamp and emboss some holiday greeting cards using silver and gold. Just Deanna has put together a card holder with a silver star to get your wheels turning.

Put together Little Elephant's shiny gold and silver advent cone line or use a similar idea to practice counting.

Molly's Sketchbook has explained a dreidel game that uses shiny gold coins.

Put together a golden pasta wreath with inspiration from Our Worldwise Classroom.

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