Kinder- the Color Mailman!!!

Ready to mail a color "fact" through the color mail!!

Busy bees!

When they bring correct color "facts" to the color MailMan they get this special stamp on their letter.

Please say that you notice the tiny drawings of the color wheel on the bottom left hand corner......love!!!

Filling up quick!

I was worried that all of the color mixing and color theory lessons I had taught over the first few months of school wasn't sticking......so with the help of my third grader, Laci, we came up with this super fun way of assessing the kindergartner's color knowledge without them knowing it ;).

We transformed our Santa Clause mailbox into a "color mailbox" and I made a color mailman hat (I'll spare you a selfie). The plan was that the students would each get a set of blank letters, stamps and envelopes to fill in with facts that they knew about color. For example,  "the primary colors are red, yellow and blue" or "blue and yellow make green". When they were done completing a piece of mail they raised their hand and I called on them to bring it to the Color Mailman (me :)). If their fact was incorrect I modeled for them how to make it correct and then they brought it back to me to mail. Each time they brought the mailman a correct fact they got to stamp their mail with the special giraffe stamp and put the mail in the color mailbox (they loved it ;)). After they mailed 3 pieces of correct color mail they earned a special eraser (thank you Target dollar section!!).

They still beg me for the color mailman to come back so I need to find a way to incorporate it into another lesson. I also was able to pinpoint the kiddos who needed more color lessons and work with them one on one.

Kinder mini-color wheel necklaces

Love this face!!!

counting and recording how many of each color beads they used

 ;) Kindergarten!

This is one of the lessons that we repeat each year for our kinders. We work color theory and color mixing into their projects often the first semester. Making these mini- color wheels gives them the opportunity to mix colors (with clay), work teeny tiny, learn about and replicate a color wheel and practice stringing beads.

With the clay they mix all of the secondary colors from the primary colors so they have six colors in total. Then they press little pieces in the order of a color wheel into a bottle cap that has been drilled with a tiny hole and tied with elastic thread. After they dry Slats and I mod podge them to make sure they don't fall out later. The next class period they string beads on to create the necklace. As they are beading we ask them if they are currently stringing a primary color or a secondary color? If they have an orange bead in their hand we ask the to tell us how to make the color orange? After they complete their necklaces we have them count and record how many beads they used of each color (as we frantically try to tie all of the necklaces before their class period is over ;)).

Fraction Pillows (1st-5th)

Whew- we are wrapping up spring break and I realize that I haven't posted about projects we made back in November......

Luckily I already wrote up a description of this project for our S.M.A.T.H. night where these fraction pillows were displayed so I'm just going to cut and paste ;).

Art and math intersect almost continuously although it usually goes unnoticed. For this project we focused on quilting and emphasized how much quilting involves using fractions to build a quilt design. The hope is for the students to independently see math concepts in much of the art that they make.

First we reviewed or were introduced to fractions based on their grade level standards. We completed worksheets for practice before we worked with the fabric. Next we collected our fabric and planned our quilt design on a template. Some grades were given a fraction and had to create their design around that fraction. Other grades created their design first and then worked with the fractions within their design when it was complete. Finally, we adhered their fabric down to our quilt square and then stuffed our pillows!