Early Education
Shape Shift by Joyce Hesselberth is an informative pre-school book that uses a vibrant design to highlight nine classic shapes (triangle, rectangle, circle, semicircle, oval, diamond, crescent, square, and trapezoid) and reinforce their identification.
The book’s illustrations, done in digital paint and mixed media, are bright and playful, combining various lines and textures. Based on the contents of this picture book, I will develop two math activities for a group of six five-year-old preschoolers. The first activity I will create will be in the Block area. I will start by tracing several different shapes of blocks on a large sheet of paper using pens of different colors. I will then ask the students to try finding a block that matches the shape and color of the outlines. After the students have correctly matched the blocks to the sketches, I will help develop their block building skills by encouraging them to build towers but keep their foundation on the correct color blocks. The second activity I will create will be in the Sensory area. I will begin by mixing dyed spaghetti noodles in a large bin before showing the preschoolers shape cards of different colors. I will then ask them to find a matching spaghetti noodle and place them around the card shapes. The students will place the noodles over the shape outlines and in the process develop their fine motor abilities. These two activities address the math concepts in the picture book as beside encouraging the preschooler to recognize the classic shapes and their colors, they also help them see shapes as creative building blocks that can be paired together to create new forms.
Monsters Love Colors by Mike Austin is a delightful chaotic introduction to colors with much scribbling characteristic of preschoolers and declarations of love by comic Muppet figures for the three primary colors.
Children learn the ideas of color mixing in a very entertaining manner. Based on the contents of this picture book, I will develop two math activities for a group of six five-year-old preschoolers. The first activity I will create will be in the Art area. I will start by placing a portion of each primary color in a triangle for every student to start with, and then ask them to use paintbrushes to carefully mix only two primary colors at a time. After they have managed to make up the three secondary colors, I will help them in shading and tinting using white and black colors. I will then ask them to tell me which combinations seem to work well together or which combinations are their favorites. The second activity I will create will be in the Outdoor Play area. I will begin by asking the students to make rainbow sidewalk chalk paint by mixing (red, blue, and green) baking soda with, cornstarch, and water. I will guide the preschoolers to make up the secondary chalk paints and even use white as a base to achieve vibrant shades of paint, particularly violet and indigo. I will then let them paint the rainbow on a large butcher paper, in the open, after they have successfully created the necessary chalk paint colors. The two activities address the science concepts in the picture book through a creative way of teaching children how mixing the primary colors results in additional colors as well as how primary and secondary colors combine to form a rainbow.
I will teach seven nine-year-old children the scientific concepts of states of matter and water cycles using a jar with lid, ice, a half cup of hot water, and hairspray. I will begin by pouring the hot water into the jar and swirling the contents to warm the sides of the container. I would then cover the jar with an upturned lid holding several ice cubes for about half a minute. Afterwards, I would remove the lid and spray the hairspray into the jar before replacing the cover with the ice still on top. When the clouds start forming, I will remove the lid to allow the students to watch the cloud escape into the air. I will then explain how the experiment works. Some of the hot water poured into the jar turns into water vapor and rises up to the top of the jar but comes into contact with cold air from the ice cubes on top. The water vapor condenses but needs something to condense on to. The hairspray allows the water vapor to condense thus the development of a cloud.