Art/Rainbow lesson

Gathering Activity:

I filled plastic cups with a little dish soap and a little water and gave each boy a squiggle straw to blow in the cup with. I also put a plate underneath to catch the bubbles as they spewed over the cup. The boys had a lot of fun making the bubbles overflow the cups. I also asked the boys if they could see any colors in their bubbles. They all seemed to see the rainbow colors.J, EM, and T blowing bubbles

J smiling as the bubbles grow out of his cup

Welcome:

EW was our helper child this week and actually wore the vest for the first time. We said the pledge of allegiance and talked about the weather. Then we talked about number 6 and how there are six basic colors in a rainbow. We then talked about the letter R and how rainbow starts with the letter R.

Activities:

Each boy was then given a plastic prism(actually they were handles from some plastic serving sets I found at Dollartree but they worked great!) and a white piece of paper. We went outside and tried to reflect rainbows onto our paper. Most of the boys were able to see the rainbows.G making a rainbow on his paper (The photo isn't very good but there was a rainbow there I promise)

Then we went back inside and each boy was given a pair of sunglasses with different colored lenses(one for each rainbow color). The lenses kept falling out of the glasses so eventually we just had the boys hold the lenses up to their eyes so they could see all in one color. We then traded colors around so everyone had a chance with each color.

EM, C, EW, P, J, G, (and T walking away) trying on their colored lenses.

Next we did a mixing activity. We started out with Red, Yellow and Blue water and talked about how these were the primary colors, then we mixed colors together to make the other three colors Orange, Green and Purple.C, EM, J, and T observing the different colors

Blue Book Activity:

Now that the boys knew how mixing the primary colors together made new colors we did a little mixing craft. Each boy was given a plate filled with shaving cream and several drops of Red, Yellow, and Blue dye. With a Q-tip the boys mixed the colors around to make fun swirl designs. When they were all done they pressed their white paper into the shaving cream and when the shaving cream was wiped of the design was preserved on the paper.

Shaving cream and dye

The finished masterpieces drying

Free Play Time:

Snack time:

For the snack the boys were given a bamboo skewer to make a rainbow fruit-kabob. I was a little nervous giving them wood sticks with a point but they were all very good and didn't use them as weapons.

Strawberries - Red
Orange slices - Orange
Pineapple - Yellow
Apple - Green
Grapes - Purple

I did some research and there actually aren't any fruits that are truly blue. I debated using blueberries even though they are purple but decided since most of the boys didn't seem too crazy about them last time we would just go without.

Fruit-kabob

Singing Time:

S led the boys in some fun songs about colors and also some of the boys favorite songs.

Story Time:

We read a short story about Noah from the bible and then put together a giant puzzle picture of Noah's ark.

Noah's Ark puzzle

Take Home Craft:

Each boy was given a paper plate cut in half with holes punched along the bottom. With yarn in each of the six rainbow colors they sewed along the bottom (They were all taped together so they could sew all of the colors and once) When they were done sewing we trimmed the ends so they were even. Each boy was then given a rainbow pen to draw a rainbow on their plate. The pen was made by taping six markers together flat in rainbow order.

P, J, G, and EM showing off their rainbows

We didn't have time to go over the various mediums of art (Watercolor, Colored pencil, oil, pastels, etc.) but they got a little of that on Tuesday so that is okay.

It was a fun lesson and all the boys were FANTASTIC!!! (Maybe we should switch lesson days to Thursday ;)