One Year Old Preschool: Orange

This entry is part 14 of 19 in the series One Year Old Preschool

1 year old preschool

This is week two of a seven week unit on the colors of the rainbow, culminating in a “review week” where we talk about rainbows.

The purpose of this unit is to teach the colors, encourage recognition and differentiation of color, and to explain the reason we have rainbows.

Our Bible verse for the unit is Genesis 9:13, 15: “I set my [rain]bow in the cloud…I will remember.”  We will be doing a lot of Noah’s ark discussion during this unit. We will also be working on a craft project throughout the unit that ties into the Noah’s ark theme.

Here is a glimpse at our week in orange:

Activities:

I created an orange sensory bin for G to play with.  It included a stuffed clown fish, a lei, a headband, a kazoo, a star cookie cutter, a textured pumpkin, and an microfiber cloth (all in shades of orange).   orange sensory bin

At first I just put the orange items in the bin, but later I added some orange colored rice and an orange bowl and cup for her to get her hands into.  This is so messy, but I can tell she really enjoys it.

orange sensory bin 2

The big hit of the sensory bin was the kazoo.  We had tried a kazoo unsuccessfully a little while back.  This time around we talked about humming and she was able to make noise with the kazoo.  So much so that she wanted to teach others how it worked.  Thank goodness we had our trusty orange friend to help us play with the sensory bin items.

ernie plays kazoo

We painted with orange paint.  We started out with a brush, but we added in an orange and our fingers and feet.  I focused on pointing out the different textures created by painting with different items.  The orange peel produced a different texture than the brush.

orange peel painting

And when we made our finger prints, we discovered a new word: ridges!  She got down on her tummy on the ground to look extra intently at the ridges in her finger prints.  She also delighted over the impressions her feet made on the paper!  Then she decided it was time to paint her head – oh what fun!  And then it was time for a bath!

orange paint

We made orange juice for breakfast.  And ate goldfish for lunch with our peanut butter and orange marmalade sandwiches, cut out with our orange star cookie cutter.  We ate oranges often (a good thing for a girl fighting off a cold).

I rigged up a spent paper towel roll on the legs of one of our chairs and showed G how to stuff small foam blocks into the roll and watch them fall into a fish bowl beneath.  She was struggling with the fish bowl for a while (she kept moving it with her feet, so the block would  not fall into it), so we just removed it and she had success stuffing the blocks and watching them fall.  Great cause and effect stuff.   We also worked on dropping the blocks and some wooden beads into the fishbowl and then dumping them out.  These blocks and beads also found their way into the sensory bin by the end of the week.

orange motor 2

We also took orange pipe cleaners and stuffed them into different bottles.  This was not a hit initially, but she got the hang of it and returned to it on her own a few times throughout the week.

orange motor

Arts & Crafts

We colored with orange crayons and made a tiger as part of a craft project we are doing for the entire color unit.  We talked about what sound tigers make (“Rawr”), their stripes, and what they eat (bananas, according to G; deer, according to D; and snakes, according to me).

tiger craft

Reading:

We read books with Noah, rainbows, and colors trying to focus on the color orange.  We don’t have any books that are specifically about or focused solely on orange.  If anybody knows of any, please leave a comment (we will be coming back around to this unit for W).

Out & About

We went to look at the orange trees at Aunt Sheila’s house (how perfect that it is orange season in Southern California – I had no idea)

orange hunt

and went on an orange scavenger hunt inside with Grandma.

orange hunt 2All this while wearing an orange hat, sometimes backwards, sometimes forwards.

 

Oh, what a marvelously fun week we had!  Can’t wait for yellow!


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This Post Has 4 Comments

  1. Conni

    G’s “orange hunt” was a leaning experience for me, as well. Giving her definite hints without spoiling her own joy of discovery was a challenge. G found every orange and watching her think about the clue, then take off on her hunt, was just so much fun for her grandparents. Thanks mom and dad for the way you make learning such an adventure for G and for us!

    1. ussleah

      I am glad we were able to do the hunt at your house. It was interesting that she knew all the spots from the clues!

  2. Christel

    Thanks for these fun posts! I recently came across your blog and I have a 15 month that I’ve been inspired to start doing a bit of “structured” learning with. I love your rainbow theme. I thought it might be a bit early to start letters for her, but my husband watched her for 15 minutes last week while I showered and when I came back he had managed to teach her to recognize the letter “O” from our magnets on the fridge. Now she always brings me the “O” and says “OH!” I just started working on letters with her today for the letter “A”. I was so impressed at how quickly she learns!

    1. ussleah

      It really is amazing how much they can learn (and how quick)! I kind of have a throw everything at the wall and see what sticks approach to teaching her and it is neat to see what she really takes to. Thank you for stopping by and leaving a comment and for the encouraging words. Let me know how the alphabet thing goes!

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