How do you teach toddlers colors, have them exercise motor skills AND have fun doing science??! Well in my class I did this sensory table on St. Patrick's Day and the kids loved it! All I did was make one ice cube tray of with blue food coloring and one with yellow so we had blue and yellow ice cubes. When the kids arrived I dumped the ice cubes into a water table and gave them each a big spoon.
They stirred and stirred and slowly but surely the water turned green right before their eyes! they were amazed and then we spent the day of course talking about and showing them lots of examples of the color GREEN around us!
Later that same day we made Puffy Parsley Clovers for art. Here's what you need: Elmer's Glue, Shaving Cream and green food coloring.
Mix together some shaving cream and glue (roughly 1/3 glue as amount of shaving cream but trust me this is not a precise measurement type art!) Then mix in the green food coloring until you have desired color. I actually ran out because I learned it takes a LOT to make a true deep green so don't say I didn't warn you! So you will have to accept my minty green clovers for now.
Then cover a card stock clover with your shaving cream mixture. Once it's covered place the clover in a container and give the child a small bowl of parsley. Allow the child to sprinkle parsley all over the clover until covered or until they are content with it :)
Because if you know toddlers - some will cover the WHOLE thing until every last bit of parsley has been used and others will drop a few handfuls and be like okay where's the blocks? Ha ha, but that's the personalities of children and I encourage you to let them explore their world the way they want to. If art takes 5 seconds or 50 minutes - it's fine.
We also make elf pudding later that day! Vanilla pudding + green food coloring (hey it's St. Patrick's Day you need to stock up!) + Elf Cookies = Elf Pudding!! Simply stick the elf in the green pudding and use it as a spoon or dip it and then eat the cookie with pudding on it - or eat them separate if you are one of "those" that can't have your food touch!
One week away and I'm already pumped about St. Patrick's Day!!
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