Rainbows and Clouds

Over the past two weeks, the books we have been really focusing on were, "A Rainbow of my Own," by Don Freeman and "Little Cloud," by Eric Carle. The books are not repeating books or predictable, but with all the rain we have been getting here in Iowa, I knew the themes of the books would be something Leia could relate too.

For the book, "A rainbow of my own," we did a few activities. The first was a food experience, where Leia was able to paint her toast. She loved doing this so much, that she asked to do it every morning that week.

Making rainbow toast is simple. You just put food coloring in milk and use that as the paint. After painting, lightly toast.  I found this idea on  teachpreschool.org

For sensory play this week, I made rainbow rice. To make the rainbow rice, I put the rice into zip lock bags, added about 8 drops of food coloring and a tablespoon of rubbing alcohol and shook the bags. I then put the rice in the bin and let it dry on the deck in the yard. When first making it, I made sure that the colors were sorted, because Leia likes to have her items sorted by color.

When she first played with the rice, she was careful not to mix the colors, but after about an hour of playing, she began to allow the rice to blend together.

The girls also did rainbow art this week. I did an open ended art experience, where I place the materials on the table, and just let the girls come up with there own ideas. They used finger paint, wax paper, brushes, and plastic bottles.

When doing, "Little Cloud," I didn't have a lot of extra activities to go with the book. It was finally nice enough to go outdoors, so for the first day, we laid on the grass and talked about the different shapes of the clouds. We also took a field trip to the Family Museum, and lucky for us, the sensory play that they had out was cloud dough.

Here you can see one of my child care children trying to cut the cloud dough with her scissors.

When reading the book, "Little Cloud," I used the pictures in the book to add some math into the mix. We talked about the positional and measurement words.

Leia and I also made "cloud jello" this week. This is a super easy snack, you just need to layer blue jello with cool whip. Not the healthiest snack, but sometimes its nice to have a special treat.

In the area of open ended art, I gave the children blue paper, cotton balls, contact paper, and Leia scissors. Leia chose to both cut and tear her blue paper. The toddler that I watched watched as I tore the paper and then was able to tear some of the pieces herself.

Leia's Little "seaweed" cloud.

Some other highlights of the last two weeks, not dealing with the book themes included, bringing housekeeping toys outside.

Another important part of our daily routine is music and movement. This is something that children of all ages can enjoy. For the babies that are not mobile, some ideas to get them involved include handing them an instrument, placing them on your lap to bounce them to the beat of the music, or simply hold and dance with them.

Here is a video of the girls playing instruments to the song, "Victor Vito," by Laurie Berkner. Please excuse my singing at the ended :) This song has parts that move slow and fast. In the video, I tell Leia to "go slowly," in order for her to try to keep tempo with the music. My daughter, Ripley and one of the infants I watch, shook the egg shakers throughout the song, and at moments swayed to the music as well.