Hefley 5.....: C is for Color

For the letter C, we talked about colors and crayons.
(Sorry, these posts have been a bit long with lots of activities......I'm trying to play catch up!)

We started off with a little science experiment.

To do this experiment, you need 6 clear glasses, water, 6 plain white paper towels, and food coloring (red, blue, and yellow). We filled every other glass about 2/3 of the way full with water (a total of 3 glasses). We took turns putting food coloring in each glass with water. So, we had one glass with blue water, one glass with yellow water, and one glass with red water.

Between each of these glasses was an empty glass, and the 6 glasses formed a circle. We rolled the paper towels and connected the glasses with the paper towels (this may not make sense, but it makes sense if you look at the picture).

Then we watched and waited. After a few minutes, we could see the water beginning to slowly travel up the paper towels. We kept watching.....

After about a day of watching, the colors had traveled all the way up the paper towels and were beginning to mix! We were all VERY excited!

Throughout this process, we discussed the "why" of it......the mixing of primary colors to form secondary colors. We were very excited by how well this project turned out, and we saved our colorful and beautiful paper towels for a future art project.

We have used our warming trays before and the children still love using them......just a fun activity that will never get old! We put wax paper down and started coloring......watching the crayon melt onto the wax paper.

B was excited to see he had made purple by mixing red and blue......they are learning without even realizing it!

If you have little ones, it's a good idea to help them so they don't touch the warming tray.

You can cut into shapes for holidays or just cover with another piece of wax paper (the warm wax will make them stick). This can also be done with foil.

Another activity we have done before is crayon melting......take the paper off old crayons and break them into small pieces. Each child picked their colors to create their own crayon......I recommend buying an old muffin tin to use when melting so you don't ruin your good tins. Bake at 250 degrees in the oven.....just watch them and when the crayons are all melted, take out of the oven.

When they have cooled completely, pop them out and they are ready to color!

The children had fun coloring in their journals with their new crayons.

We ended our week by celebrating Cowboy Day at Parkside.....perfect for C week! We really enjoy visiting Parkside and the residents. They always make us feel very welcome and the residents really seem to enjoy the children.