connecting with literature
As the "school year" winds to a close I'm leading a book group for the smallest kids in our bubble school. It's mainly because all their older siblings are doing book groups, so one of them at least requested that the first- and second-graders get one too. We're happy to oblige! Other adults led them through Dragons and Marshmallows and Catwings earlier this year; now I'm taking a turn with Betsy and Tacy. Of course, the main feature of a book group is that the kids do activities related to the text, so I need to satisfy that requirement. I think I'm doing ok: last week we cut out and colored paper dolls, which was super fun, and this week we went even bigger with a project to make colored sand.
the finshed product
In the story Betsy and Tacy are playing with leftover builders' sand, and realize that they can color it with the dyes that Betsy saved after dying Easter eggs. Then they sell the jars they filled with colored sand. That sounded like something the kids could do and enjoy! Naturally, I didn't try it ahead of time to make sure it worked, but I did supply food coloring and play sand and a number of jars. And it came together pretty well! We mixed the colors in a jar, added sand til there was so extra liquid, stirred it up, then poured it out onto pieces of cardboard to dry in the sun. Betsy and Tacy made their sand in early May and it took hours to dry; with a little bit of stirring under the mid-June sun ours was ready in about an hour, and we poured each color into a cup of its own. Then with a funnel the kids laid in stripes into the vessels of their choice.
hard at work
They were very excited about the selling part of the project until they saw how nice their jars came out. Despite all the work and starting with plenty of sand we only ended up with enough good colors for each kid to make one jar, and they couldn't bear to part with them. But they were inspired by another bit in the story to make calling cards and drop them in all the neighbors' mailboxes, so they were able to scratch their awkward-interactions-with-unfamiliar-adults itch another way. Though actually, they didn't see anyone as they dropped off their cards. I wonder what people will think next time they check their mail? Maybe the kids could have left flyers for a colored sand sale... we could make more next time!
we colored skin too!