Green Wrap-up

Well, we have finished our second Color Week.  Here's how we started it, with our color basket.  We played with colored rice, with colored water, and with stickers (see our sensory activities here).  We read several books.  We wore green shirts and talked about green things in nature.

Also this week, we watched a couple of green-themed videos on YouTube.  (They're my secret weapon for getting her hair done.)

First, Tee-Hee Town's Green song.  She wasn't sure about this one at first, but as the week passed, she came to like it more and more.

Naturally, one can't talk about green without thinking about Kermit the Frog!

And we found a funny parody of "It's Not Easy Being Green" sung by Oscar the Grouch.  It was awesome:

Do you have any other GREEN videos we should check out?  Can you think of any other amazing ways to celebrate GREEN?

Green Books

This week we requested and read several books about Green and Green things from the public library and our home library.  We read:

Green, by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

"Green" talks about things that are... green.Various types of green.  There were die cuts in the book but they weren't really noticeable (mostly because everything was green).  Toddler was not impressed.

Green Eggs and Ham, by Dr. Seuss

Classic.  It took her a page or two to get into it, but then Jo started to try to "read" along with the rhymes and repeating phrases.

The Little Green Witch, by Barbara Barbieri McGrath

Cute version of the little red hen story.  Would be cute to read again around Hallowe'en.  I don't think toddler really "gets" this story yet.  We'll try it again during our Red week with a typical little red hen story.  I did like how this one ends, though. ;-)

Green Wilma, Frog in Space

Story of a green frog just trying to catch a fly when all the sudden it is scooped up into a space ship and the little alien that belongs in the space ship gets left behind.

Meet Mr. and Mrs. Green, by Keith Baker

Two crocodiles? alligators? and their adventures together going camping, eating pancakes, and going to the fair.  It's three stories in one and we broke it up rather than read the whole thing through.

The Green Bath, by Margaret Mahy

I read through this one prior to introducing it to my toddler.  It's about a boy who is disappointed when his friends get to go to the beach and he has to take a bath, but then he ends up at the beach and all over the world having adventures in a green bathtub.  I got through about a page and a half with my two-and-a-half.  Older kids might enjoy this one more.

Grandpa Green

This story takes you through a topiary garden in which a man has sculpted plants to tell his life story.  My toddler liked looking at the pictures in this one.

Green as a Bean, Karla Kuskin

This was not an exclusively green book, but had you think about "if you were green, what would you be?" "If you were square?" "If you were bright?" It was a creative book and toddler enjoyed hearing it.  I would like to revisit this one in a year or two and do some creative activities and play around some of the ideas it talks about.

Go Away, Big Green Monster!, by Ed Emberly

This is a great book for a green unit! ... if you get a full book, that is.  We heard this book at a story time at Hallowe'en last year and I thought it would be great for our green week. Unfortunately, the book we received through inter-library loan was missing at least half of it's pages, which really ruins the book because of the die cuts -- the purple hair wasn't purple, and we never ever saw the big green monster.  It was very disappointing, because my toddler was really excited for this one just based on the cover.  So, if you can get a copy with all the pages, I highly recommend it.  (There's also Nighty Night, Little Green Monster by the same author, same die cut concept, also very cute and would be perfect also.)

Did we miss any great books about the color green?

Green Sensory Activities

1. Colored rice in the sensory bin
The night before our Green Week, I dyed some rice.  We're working on the concept of keeping the rice IN the bucket.  She enjoyed using her scoop and the shapes from her shape sorter.  Another time that we played, we used her measuring cups and spoons, which she thought was a lot of fun.

2.  Frog themed water play
No pictures of this one - I set it up just as my knitting student was coming over.  It was a big, flat container with green colored water, green water beads, and the frogs and turtles from her bath toys.  She also used her measuring cups and spoons to scoop and pour water.  Jo played and splashed while I taught my lesson.  I put down a towel but she easily over-splashed.  Later when we played, I put down several towels.  Jo discovered that sitting on a package of paper towels was the perfect height so that she could dip her feet and splash in the water.

3.  Stickers
Jo worked on this one over the course of the week.  I pulled out a bunch of stickers from my stash and put them and a green sheet of paper on a cookie sheet.  Jo would peel the stickers off their paper and stick them to the green paper.  We talked about the different things she was sticking that were green.

What else would/did you do with the color green?

Color of the Week 2: Green

Week two of our Colorful Summer!  Our color of the week is GREEN.  We started out our "school" day on a green blanket and sang a few of our favorite songs (this week included several verses of the Wheels on the Bus) and then we pulled out the basket.  Jo was all set for "Yellow Things!" and was surprised to see that the contents of the basket had changed to green.  (I filled it the night before with toys and other things from around the house.)

Our basket contained the following things:

• balls of various sizes and compositions
• frogs and turtles and other bath toys
• Duplos
• Little Pig #2 and his house
• hair clip
• bead necklaces
• scarf
• chip clip
• measuring cups and spoons
• cube
• wind chimes
• plate, cup, saucer, fork, knife, and spoon from her play dishes
• shapes from her shape sorter
• scoop from her sand toys
• crayon
• letters from her LeapFrog Fridge Phonics
• plastic bugs
• play phone

Overall, counting each object as one, there were 75ish objects in the basket.  She enjoyed wearing her scarf, building with the Duplos and counting various objects.  We pulled objects from the basket several times over the week for other activities (look for another post!) and she returned to look through the basket several times.

Stay tuned for more about our Green Week!  What would you put in your green basket?