Mixing It Up...Our Colour Inquiry

I truly believe that if you just take a moment to stop and actually listen to children, something magical can happen in your classroom.  Here's what I mean...
Several weeks back, a student came up to me while we were cleaning up and asked whether she should put this marker back with the red markers or purple markers (we sort our supplies by colour).
I asked her to think about it and she wasn't sure.
So I suggested we try an experiment to see what if this marker was either a shade of red or purple.

I set out white paint and red and purple paint.  Another student was very interested in what we were going to do.  So the two added white paint to each colour and watched what happened.




They quickly saw how both colours lightened and realized that the marker was actually a shade of purple.








There was so much interest from many other children to create colours of other markers.
We were mixing and creating new colours each day!
This was a perfect opportunity to introduce the colour wheel to the class, and discuss primary and secondary colours.

This provocation was set up for the children - using eye droppers to mix the primary colours and see what colours could be made.



After having many discussions around primary colours and creating secondary colours, we left primary colours of paint along with white and black paint and Q-tips to see what would happen.


The children began asking questions about making shades lighter and darker, and quickly realized that by adding more of either black or white, this could happen.

Our students also noticed that on the paint samples displayed where the markers are, each paint had been given a name.  We invited them to name their new colours as well.




For several weeks, we noticed how the children were quite interested in using various tools to create new colours.  They soon began using the drawing techniques we had introduced earlier in the year.  The students drew pictures in pencil and then traced with permanent marker before using their new paints!







To try something new, mirrors and watercolour paints were set up near the art area.
This new way of painting was truly a favourite by all!



In the hallway outside of our classroom, the overhead projector was set up to explore colour palettes and light.  




Another teacher leant us her colour prism and the students were so interested to see all the different colours that projected onto the wall!

One student spent a good part of the day trying to figure out how to make black on the overhead projector using all of the colours.  She quickly saw that black has shades too!  She represented her learning by mixing black and white to form these many shades.


We had printed many of our inquiry pictures for the students to see in colour and placed them in our inquiry binder.  Some students wondered what would happen if we printed the pictures of our new colours in black and white - what would the colours look like?
So we tried it!
One student took this photo of her friend and we learned about the many filters on our iPad.




Then we continued to print our pictures in black and white.  We noticed that the lighter colours, such as yellow and orange, were lighter shades of grey, and that the darker colours, such as blue or green, printed in darker shades of grey.




We couldn't imagine all the learning taking place from this one little question posed by our student.  Sometimes it's easier for a teacher to simply say the answer and move on.  Can you imagine if we had done that?  None of this amazing learning would have happened!

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Jack-o-Lantern fun!

With Halloween about a week away, we decided to get into the Halloween spirit throughout our classroom.
 
 This was a felt board activity I made years ago but it seems to be a hit year after year!
Our students designed different faces for the pumpkin.
You can read all about this felt board activity, and another fun Halloween one, here.
 
 
We set out this provocation asking the students if they could design a face for our pumpkin.
We plan on carving it next week and it would be great if we could take a vote after all the entries are in.
 
 
The adorable printable comes from the Club Chica Circle blog and you can find it as a free download by clicking here.
We have been discussing emotions quite a bit since the beginning of school so we thought this free download was perfect!
 
 
I also discovered this great song, all about the 5 Little Pumpkins, and how they each show an emotion.  Our students love singing along on our Bright Links board!
 
http://mrsalbanesesclass.blogspot.ca/2012/10/halloween-is-comingfreebie.html
 
If you are looking for a free download for a cute and easy Halloween song, click the picture above to see my post from a couple of years ago.
 
Happy Halloween!
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Making Applesauce

After our field trip to the apple orchard a couple of weeks ago, we noticed that our students still had such an interest in apples!
Each day, the conversations around the snack centre (or "Bistro") included comparing the apples many students brought for a snack, trying different ways to get the seeds out, counting the apples seeds, and listening for the loudest crunch.
 
We had a big bag full of apples and asked the children what they thought we could make with them.
 
M.R.:  We can make apple pie!
 
M.P.:  Apple cake!
 
J.M.:  We can make applesauce!
 
We decided that applesauce was probably the easiest thing to make inside our classroom since we already had a few ingredients handy.
We showed the students how to peel the apples carefully using a peeler.
Everyone wanted a turn to try!
 
S.S.:  This is a lot of work!  You have to be careful when peeling the apples!
 
These children were trying to pick up all of the seeds to keep them as part of our Seed Inquiry happening in the classroom.
 
One of the ingredients in our recipe was cinnamon.  We passed it around for students to smell.
 
Jo.F.:  I like it!  It smells so nice!
 
Ju.F.:  This reminds me of a Beaver Tail that I had in Mont Tremblant!
 
L.G.:  It smells like a cappuccino!
 
And then for the best part....after waiting about 3 hours for it to cook in the slow cooker, it was finally ready to EAT!
YUM!
 
I love when our students have hands-on opportunities to create various food to eat!
Many of the Senior Kindergarten students remembered the vegetable soup we made last fall!
So much learning (and fun!) happening at the same time!
 
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