Welcome to the Learning Colors, Shapes & ABC’s through Science preschool series!
My goal is to introduce my preschooler to his colors, shapes and letters through scientific activities. My hope is that this will increase his observations skills and make learning these basic facts more interesting. We will also be adding in art activities, books, notebook pages and other motor activities, which I’ll share with you along the way.
What I share in these posts is my plan, some weeks we will actually do all of these activities, most we won’t. The idea is that each week, I’ll have a buffet of activities to pull from to introduce my son to these fundamental concepts. You can read more about my plans for this series in the Learning Colors, Shapes & ABC’s through Science introduction post.
This week our focus was the color yellow and rectangles.
Banana Mush-up
Let the students observe a banana. Ask questions like:
- How does the skin feel?
- Is it soft or hard?
- Is it smooth or rough?
Draw a rectangle on a piece of paper and have the students try to fit their banana inside the rectangle. Next, peel the banana and ask the students:
- How does the inside differ from the outside?
- Is it soft or hard?
- Is it smooth or rough?
Have the students use a blunt knife to slice the banana in half. Let them mush up the banana with their hands. Ask them:
- What does it feel like?
- Is it wet or dry?
- Is it sticky or smooth?
When they are done, let them lick their hands and take a bite of the other half of the banana to see if the two taste different.
Take if Further: Do the “Water Flow” activity in More Mudpies & Magnets on pg. 81. Use yellow objects for the demonstrations.
Book List
Here are several books on the color yellow.
- In My New Yellow Shirt by Eileen Spinelli and Hideko Takahashi
- Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert
- Yellow (A+ Books: Colors) by Sarah L. Schuette
- Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings by Matthew Van Fleet
- One Yellow Lion by Matthew Van Fleet
Additional Activities
- Art: Have the students draw a picture with glue and then sprinkle sand or yellow glitter over their picture. Shake the paper off over a trash can to reveal their design.
- Math: Cut out ten yellow rectangle and use them to practice counting to ten.
- Fine Motor: Have the students string pasta that has been dyed yellow on a yellow string. (You can dye pasta yellow by placing 10 drops of yellow food coloring with 1 to 2 tablespoons of rubbing alcohol. Mix well and add 1 cup of pasta. Shake it up until all the pasta is coated with the dye.)
- Notebook: Create a page in the students’ notebook for the color yellow and the shape of a rectangle. On each page place stickers or pictures that match the color or shape.
- Movement: Tie yellow streamers to the student and let them run around to see what the wind does to the streamers.
- Snack: Make lemonade from scratch and serve it with bananas or another yellow food.
Here’s a link to yellow themed songs, poems and fingerplays.
Our Experience
Little man loved mushing up the banana and licking it up off his hands, which was no surprise because he is a boy after all! He didn’t want to string pasta, so we stamped yellow rectangles instead. He did however love to shake glitter off the paper, especially since most of it missed the trash can. (Mental Note: Do not do glitter activities with a boy indoors.)
Other than that, we had fun making our notebooking pages for yellow and rectangles. We didn’t get much else done as it was a very busy week with my daughter. However, I did get a lot of enjoyment in watching little man say the color yellow. He gets the cutest serious face as he very clearly and confidently says, “Mommy, it’s lellow.”
I love those moments and I treasure them as I know all to fast, they disappear.
I hope you and your students enjoy the activities above. Please feel free to share your experiences or link to a blog post that shows what you guys have done in the comments below!
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