Holi- A Unit On Colors

Finally, this mama and teacher bear has come out of her hibernation and of course the reason is the beautiful spring time! 

With spring, comes the festival of colors for north Indians though now the festival has gained popularity across the globe. Read THIS POST to know more about the festival.

Colors are symbolic to this festival, so I thought of creating a unit to teach little children about different colors using the theme of Holi.

It has a range of hands on activities that children will enjoy doing.

Sorting activity with balloons.

Roll the dice and graph different colors.

Clip Cards to practice those fine motor skills.

I Spy different colors.

Color word maze.

If you would like to get these, click HERE.

They are sure to add fun to the other holi based activities that you would be doing in your class.

Also don't forget to check out this cute craft HERE

Foam Shapes and Numbers!

Foam shapes are such a fabulous tool to get children to count, learn shapes/colors and to build their imagination.

My main objective for the kids while doing this activity was to help them to count but it brought out many other aspects of learning and that made me very glad.

I simply gave children some foam shapes and asked them to create something out of it. They used their creativity and made many designs.

I encouraged them to copy their designs on paper because I wanted to record it but you can eliminate this step if you like.

After they finished making their designs (give them plenty of time to complete), I asked them to count the shapes used in making the designs. Some of them even recorded the number.

A transformer!

A bow!

A BMW!

A lion!

If you note, children even attempted to write what they had made. So we were able to incorporate literacy too!

It is a simple activity with no preparation but brings out beautiful results. Do try it out with your class.

Big Pumpkin Story Sequencing Cards

I love the story- Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman. Its a great book to read aloud during Halloween and is perfect for practicing retelling skills. The repetitive text makes it easier for young children to comprehend the story. Its  also a fun story to enact during assemblies or class presentations.

I made a set of sequencing cards that goes perfectly with this book. Use it during guided reading or simply place them in your literacy center.

Encourage young children to look at the pictures, arrange them in an order and retell the story in their own words. Emerging readers can even attempt to read the simple sentences written on the cards. 

Get the cards from my TPT STORE.

Ramayana Puppets.

I wanted children to understand why we celebrate Diwali and so the story of Ramayana had to shared with them. The book by Bhakti Mathur was useful in explaining the story to the little ones as it has bright illustrations and rhyming text.

We made some cute puppets to retell the story. I gave them cutouts and paper bags and all they had to do was assemble them together and add features.

Puppets of Lord Rama!

Puppets of Goddess Sita!

The Brave Hanumanji!

Ravana!

It was great fun to see children enacting each character from the story. They thoroughly enjoyed the process and so did I!

Diwali Gift Idea!

If you are looking for a simple and cute Diwali gift idea, look no further. All you need is a diya or a tea light and some transparent coloured paper. Involve your children by letting them colour the elephant.
I would suggest printing the elephant template on card stock as the diya has to be placed on the elephant.
 Stick the diya with double sided tape after the elephant has been colored and you are ready to wish your loved ones Happy Diwali!

Diwali Literacy Pack

I admit that three months is a long time to have gone missing from the blogging scene but life had its own plans for me and blogging took a back seat . But I was quite active on Facebook and posted a lot of fun stuff for little kids . So if you follow me there , I am sure you didn't miss me too much  :)

October is a great month for me, for many reasons . It's the month of fall(That lovely nip in the air, always make me happy), I get to celebrate birthdays of people close to me and it has two of my favourite holidays: Diwali and Halloween. And this post is going to be full of Diwali goodness. 

I am sharing my Diwali literacy pack and it is packed with a lot of learning material for your little ones.

It includes Bingo sheets which you can print and use with a small group.

Use the memory cards from the pack to play a memory game, build vocabulary and talk about the various symbols of Diwali.

Stamping Fun!

Syllable practice for building those essential early reading skills. 

A creative writing sheet!

All this in one pack.

 So what are you waiting for? Grab this pack and give your little ones the gift of literacy, this Diwali.

Click HERE to go to my TPT STORE.

Rhyming with Ten Apples up on Top!

Splat those delicious apples! We read the adorable book "Ten Apples up on Top" By Dr Seuss and couldn't resist making these yummy, deep red and soft apples. Ok! they are not edible but they turned out so nice, that I actually wanted to take a bite out of them. I got my inspiration from SUGAR AUNTS!

 Now I am going to deviate a bit and talk about mentioning or giving credit to people from whom you take inspiration. All it takes is a few words and social media has made that job so easy for us. Even if you don't want to stress the muscles of your mouth by saying that "I loved your activity" to the person concerned, you can only press few buttons on your keyboard and type a few words and let them know. Easy Peasy! Somehow I never get why people find it difficult to appreciate. After all, teachers learn from other teachers. You don't lose anything by expressing your gratitude!

Enough said on that. Back to the apples. All you need is flour and water and some red food colouring. Mix them all up and throw in some cotton balls. Let children mix and bake them in an oven for an hour.

Add some pipe cleaners and leaves. I just made holes in the leaves and passed the pipe cleaner from it. Then pressed it on the baked apple.

Now start the game.Print out the rhyming cards. The words are from the book “Ten Apples up on Top!” By Dr Seuss.

Encourage children to tell you a word that rhymes with the word on the card. If they come up with a correct word, let them take an apple from the basket and splat the apple. Whoever splats the maximum apples, is the winner.

I loved how this game out. It was pure fun and  great learning time for kids. Printable of the game coming soon.