Primarily Colors

After our Rainbow and St. Patrick's Day themes I decided to move right into a closer look at primary and secondary colors.  This also gave me an opportunity to bring out Montessori color boxes 2 and 3 that I recently purchased from Kid Advance Montessori -- where I have ordered all of my traditional materials so far.  

We started by learning about the primary colors -- red, yellow, and blue.  I pulled out a bunch of craft supplies in those three colors and the kids made primary color collages as their art project for the day.  I also introduced color box 2 during circle time -- showing the kids how to match the colors.  And, I did a presentation on color box 3 - grading colors from darkest to lightest - with the primary colors only at this point.

Below are a couple pictures of one of the kids working with color box 2.  You can see from the pictures that he was very engaged in his work!

After we learned about the primary colors, we moved on to the secondary colors - orange, green, and purple.  I deliberately taught them in the order they come in the rainbow.  This way I can show the kids that each secondary color is in between the primary colors that make it in the rainbow -- something I had never noticed until I read it somewhere recently!

Here are some pictures of a couple more "color" works that I added last week.  I didn't add a lot of new work last week because some many of the rainbow works were also relevant to color.  And, the kids were still working their way through what I added the previous week.

These are "Mouse's Color Word Puzzles" from Making Learning Fun.

Sorting spools of thread by color.  The spools of thread have varying grades of each color so that it is a little bit more challenging than just sorting spools that are all exactly the same colors.

Last week we also started the geometric solids -- the kids are especially intrigued with the names of the solids!  Remembering all those names is definitely a challenge!

Here are some pictures of the kids working with the solids:

 I was so excited to see that this weeks Montessori Monday link up post was about the geometric solids!  Check it out for some great extension ideas!

Along with the geometric solids, we are also beginning to learn the names of the shapes in the geometric cabinet -- three shapes at a time.  I also found some great shape matching cards tucked away in one of my cabinets that work really nicely as another shape work to have out in addition to the geometric cabinet shapes.

Here are some pictures of the kids using the shape matching cards.  The really neat thing about these cards is that after you match the two sides of each shape, you can flip it over and there is colorful picture on the other side!  Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of the cards once they are flipped over.  But, suffice it to say that the kids really like the pictures on the flip side of the cards!

Here are some additional pictures of the kids working with some other materials that are not new to the shelves this week:

Addition with golden beads!

Wooden letter/picture matching puzzles.

Teen bead hanger.

Bead stair hanger.

Red Knobless cylinders.

Last week was such an unusually warm spring week for Michigan -- so I took advantage and brought the kids outside almost every day!  Here are some pictures of our time outside:

Conspiring by one of the trees!

We had a dad assisting in the classroom on this particular day -- he got all the boys riled up and they were all wrestling him to the ground!

These boys gave him a run for his money!  Well, assist parents don't get paid, but you get the idea...

If you have noticed that most of the pictures I take are of boys, please do not think that I am favoring boys over girls!  I have an unusually high ratio of boys to girls -- especially in my 4's class.  There are 13 boys and only 4 girls in that class -- so it is very difficult to have an even number of pictures of boys and girls.

I would also like to share an awesome giveaway opportunity offered by Living Montessori Now and sponsored by Montessori Compass.   Montessori Compass is giving away one free iPad 2!  Click on the Living Montessori Now link above to find out the MANY ways to enter this giveaway!

I am linking up with Montessori Monday through Living Montessori Now: