Fun with Primary Colors-In Person!

It’s official. I have taught 22 days of kindergarten virtually—something I never expected to do. However, this past week, I had the opportunity to have some small groups of kids come in for 2 hour blocks of time as a transition day to get them ready to return to in person learning next week. They were so excited to be in their real classroom! 

 Essentially, this small 2-hour window of time was their “first day of kindergarten” in the classroom. It felt so odd after teaching virtually and seeing them on a computer screen everyday, but the kids were so excited to come to school! Amazingly, there weren’t any tears and only happy faces (under their mask, of course)! 

This wasn’t our typical first day of school and these kids were ready for some action, so I decided to do a fun lesson that would incorporate some hands-on fun! I started off by reading “White Rabbit’s Color Book” by Alan Baker (click to get it here from Amazon). After reading the story, which talks about primary colors and what happens when you mix them together, we decided to give it a try. The students gathered around me as I got out a white plate and some red, yellow, and blue paint. We flipped though the story again and discussed the colors the bunny dipped himself in, then tried mixing them on the plate to see if it really made these new colors. The kids were so amazed to see that mixing two primary colors together actually made a new color! 

After our little paint experiment, I decided it was time for the kiddos to try a little experimenting of their own to make a secondary color. Each of them got a cup of white icing and a plate of cookies. They had to decide what two colors they wanted to mix together to get a new color of icing. Once their choice was made, I squirted some gel food coloring into their icing (it just take a little) and they mixed it up well until they got their new color! The excitement in the room was through the roof! They loved using their little plastic knife to spread the icing on their cookies before they enjoyed their treat (Side note: They did amazing with the plastic knife, but I wouldn't trust all groups with it 😂) ! 

To conclude this fun little lesson, we did one more experiment together. I saw this video on The Adley Show (my whole Kinder Team loves her and were excited to see her do something we could spin for a project at school) and couldn’t wait to try it for myself. It didn’t disappoint! Once again, the kids gathered around as they watched me perform each step of the experiment. I poured milk into a pie pan. Then I squirted some food coloring around the edges of the pan. I started with blue, then moved toward the middle to do a line of yellow around the pie pan, and then I put a lot of red food coloring right in the center. Next, I soaked a cotton ball in some Gain Laundry Detergent (I cut open a laundry pod) and placed it in the middle of the pie pan. The colors instantly started moving and you can hear the amazement as the kids watched the colors mix! Click below to watch the video of the experiment as it happens and hear their excited voices! 

Mixing Primary Colors Science Experiment

 This was such a fun little lesson and a great way to start off the year in person with my class. I definitely recommend this experiment and think it would be a fun way to explore primary and secondary colors for various grade levels up to at least 2nd grade. 

Starting Monday, all my students will be able to return in person. Of course we have no idea how long it will last, but we are prepared to take all the precautions we can and take advantage of our time together. I hope everyone else is off to a great start this year and I’m still praying for some normalcy as we get our kids back into our classrooms and ready to learn!

Hatching Baby Chicks!

One of the chicks that hatched this year! 🐥

Spring in my classroom is one of my favorite times of year!  It’s a time of new beginnings in nature and I love teaching my class about that.  One of my favorite activities is learning about the life cycle of a chicken and incubating our very own chicken eggs!  Of course, due to COVID-19, this has really thrown a wrench in things.  But, I didn’t miss a beat and decided to bring the classroom into my home!

 

I have the cage all set up in my garage for the chicks when they hatch!

I have been incubating and hatching chicken eggs for over 10 years in my classroom.  The first time I ever did this was during my student teaching and we actually hatched duck eggs then.  To be able to continue the tradition, I incubated and hatched chickens at home and each day I recorded the kids daily video updates!  It was definitely a different experience than what I typically have in my classroom.  I had to find a safe place at home where I didn’t have to worry about the eggs being disturbed……so they ended up in my bedroom!  I never thought I’d have chickens in my bedroom, but here we are! Haha

 

I have the incubator set up and ready to go on my nightstand!

The process of hatching chicken eggs take about 21 days.  I love teaching about the life cycle with fun activities and videos.  Once we learn all the basics, we place the eggs in the incubator.  I try to let the kids be as involved as possible in the process, especially since this is likely their first (and only) time experiencing this miracle of life!  We start counting each day until we get to 21 (sometimes the chickens may surprise us and we will have some early or late hatchers). 

This year, since we weren’t at school, I didn’t get as many eggs from a local farmer.  Usually, I will get around 40 eggs, which is enough to fill the incubator.  All the eggs aren’t fertilized, so they won’t all have a chicken growing inside to hatch.  This year, I only got 12 eggs and we had chickens hatch from two of them.  The hatch rate can vary, although we “candle” the eggs throughout the process so we can see how many chicks to be expecting.

We had two chicks that hatched out of the 12 eggs!  They really surprised me this year and the first one hatched on day 20 and the second one on day 21!

Hatching chicks is definitely one of the most exciting times of year in our classroom!  I hate that the students weren’t there to experience it all first hand, but I’m glad I was able to do this for them at home and do mini-lessons and video updates.  This is definitely something you can do in your own classroom and is an amazing opportunity for your students to experience the miracle of life!  Let me know if you need any help getting this started in your classroom and I’d be happy to answer all your questions!