red yellow orange

So this week we’re learning about orange.  Yes, we are still in our farm theme – but it’s fall so I put this mini unit into the mix.  This past weekend I made a batch of yellow and a batch of red playdough.  As you’ve probably guessed, we are mixing the two together to get orange.  I give each child a little ball of yellow and a little ball of red and just let them play – most mix the colors, a few choose not to.  However, the color is coming out more of a red-orange then a true orange.  I should have made a batch and a half of yellow and a half batch of red because as it stands now the red is overpowering the yellow.  Oh well, I’ll have to mental-note that for next year.

Another activity we did was I put a squirt of yellow and a squirt of red paint into a small zip-lock sandwich baggie, sealed it, and gave one to each child to squish around.  After a bunch of manipulation we discovered that the two colors mixed and made orange!  Some children told me they already knew that would happen – but I could tell that for a lot of them it was a new discovery!  I loved the looks on some of their faces when they saw the color changing!

One of the last activities we’ve done so far this week is painting with yellow and red.  I put some red and yellow on a large piece of white construction paper and give them a paintbrush.  Almost every child mixed their paints and painted until their entire paper was covered in orange!  Then, when their painting was finished I put a strip of paper in the middle that read “Red + Yellow = Orange” – which made the kids excited because they had a “real” math problem on their paper!  (We had talked about the “+” and “=” signs as a group beforehand when we did the paint in the baggies and I wrote it on the board)

So far, a good start to our week!  🙂