Tot School: Rainbows and the End of Colors

Over the last two weeks, we have been wrapping up our tot school colors themes and doing some review while focusing on rainbows! Hen and I had a great time, but I think we are ready to move on to shapes! 

On the activity wall was a rainbow magnet dry-erase board (Target dollar spot) and a set of pom-pom magnets I made. Henry loved the dry-erase board and spent lots of time coloring it. Hen liked the magnets but got frustrated that they wouldn't stick to everything.

I did not add anything new to the felt board for rainbow week. I did, however, add a bunch of colored shapes so we could make a rainbow. He enjoyed pointing out the colors of the shape when I asked him to find them, but didn't know any of the shapes' names.

The tot trays were really fun! The first tray was the rainbow sensory bin. I included anything that I had multiple colors in, anything that was multicolored, or anything rainbow specific. It ended up being really full and had great variety. It's the first sensory bin in awhile that Henry really seemed to enjoy.

The other two trays were the rainbow color sorters that I blogged about earlier. The first was the toilet roll sorter with the Popsicle sticks. Henry really really liked this one. He could grab handfuls of those sticks and just carry them all over. He enjoyed placing the sticks in the tubes, but wasn't super accurate. He also did have a hard time being gentle enough to not knock them all over when placing the sticks. But soon, knocking them over and re-setting them up, became an even greater game.

The second sorter was the felt rainbow. Henry really liked placing the strips on the felt board, but had zero interest in making a rainbow. I think the activity just ended up being too advanced for him. But, my 3-year-old niece was over one day, and she sat and did the activity perfectly!

I originally planned to get a bunch of rainbow books to put out for this week. But then, I decided we needed a break from tot school books. Henry was getting so mad about them that I thought maybe a break would help rekindle his interest. We still read a lot outside of tot school, just nothing in our classroom. 

Other rainbow activities included: 

Coloring: A rainbow of toddler crayons over a rainy Elmo picture. Henry was still much more interested in eating the crayons more than coloring.

Dot painting:  I drew a rainbow and gave Hen a dot brush to fill it in. He thought the spread of paint was a buffet and spend most of the time trying to shove it into his mouth. I filled in most of the rainbow, but he seemed to like watching and pointing to the right color.

3D Rainbow: This was another activity Henry just wasn't that excited about. I gave him a bowl with several different objects in one color. Then I used two sided scrapbooking tape to make a rainbow shape. He could then place the objects to make the rainbow. I ended up doing a lot of it but Henry enjoyed coloring on the page once it was done.

Sesame Street Rainbow: This rainbow was by far Henry's favorite project over the two weeks. I made a chart with a spot for each color in the rainbow. Then printed and cut out a corresponding Sesame Street character. Henry and I then pasted the characters into the right boxes. Once that was done, I gave him some Sesame Street stickers and we placed the right colored ones into the boxes. Henry loved, loved, loved this. If anyone wants the chart/characters, leave a comment and I'll share.

Stickers: We decorated a rainbow with multicolored and rainbow stickers for our tot school classroom wall.

If you enjoyed this week -- check out all our other color units!