Rainbow activities – Day 1

Oh how I’ve been looking forward to this theme. I just love rainbows. We’re a little behind the rest of the civilized world, especially the UK, on doing rainbow crafts though. They have become the symbol of support for the NHS, and every child in Great Britain seems to have already made one for their window to show their support. June is Pride Month though, so there is still some gas in the tank for rainbows, and we’re going full throttle.

Today I started properly using my Raising Truffles Instagram account (follow me! I need pals over there) and have used it to source an enormous amount of awesome activities for this week.

Quick shout out to my messy trays. I had looked around for formal messy trays, the tuff tray is a popular brand. However once I saw the price I was completely put off them. I’ve got a trio of kids, and it’s pretty rare we’re not doing something at least in a pair. I simply couldn’t reconcile spending the amount of money they wanted me to spend to get 3 of the things. Enter the humble under the bed storage box. At $4.35 each they are the best value for money you can find. I got mine here. But if you’re in the UK these look fab.

I lined the trays with paper and taped it down on the edge to stop it sliding. Then I dolloped some kids paints down the side and gave the boys a ball each. We have a whole basket of different balls, all with different textures. To start with Teddy chose a spiked ball, and William used a large bowling ball.

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I had plenty of extra paper on hand, so that whenever the boys wanted to switch balls I could give them a fresh piece of paper to do a new pattern. However Teddy saw what a very neared dotted pattern his spiked ball was making, and decided he couldn’t give it up. He spent our entire craft time gently rolling it back and forth through the paint. My rush ahead and deal with the mess later son on the other hand used every single ball on offer, dropped a couple on the floor and spread some paint there, then got it all over his hands. Same parents. Same activities. Two very very different human beings.

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The real beauty in using trays is that when you’re done you can put them to the side and worry about clean up when you have a moment. So whilst the momentum was going I got out their academics. William had a fab readworks which was exactly his sort of thing. Lots of talk of prisms and the science behind how a rainbow is made. I was so proud of how hard he focused. He rattles through multiple choice questions, so I’ve started showing him some testing strategies like crossing out options you know are not the right answer. Even if he can choose the right answer for the comprehension sheets he’s doing right now, it’s important to have these strategies in his tool box for when he has to answer questions he’s not so confident on. I think next week I’m going to start getting him to underline evidence in the text. Maybe I’ll give him a highlighter. He goes crazy for a highlighter. Today was also a pretty fab day for comprehension because for the first time ever he pulled his evidence from the text and remembered to use quotation marks. I was so proud of him, and how far he’s come in the past few months.

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For teddy I had a rainbow worksheet that helped show him the number bonds to make 10. He spent a huge amount of time coloring his rainbow in very neatly. They had watched a Ryan’s world video on rainbows earlier today.l, and he was a little peeved the sheet didn’t have 7 spots for colors and he had to forgo his violet. But he rallied. I gave him his number blocks to help give him a manipulative to form the groups to make 10. It really helped, and he filled in his sheet carefully and slowly, checking with his blocks as he went. He then insisted on using all the colors in the rainbow to write his name at the top. He’s so creative, and careful and neat. I can’t wait to see how he shines in Pre K this fall.

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That’s it for our first rainbow day, it was wonderfully relaxing, and all the colors made us smile, and lifted the mood. I can’t wait for tomorrow. We have an awesome fine motor bead threading activity to do, I think it’s going to be a blast. Catch you there.

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