The Royal Ball and Holi (festival of colors)

Hello Purple Room Families,

With the anticipation of when our royal ball will be held, we are keeping ourselves busy preparing for this fun event. Children have been asking almost everyday, "Is the ball today?" We have been asking them to be patient since our friends have a big list in mind for the ball prep and we are working towards it gradually. Following is their list when we brainstormed about the entire event...








It's hard to add another item, right? They probably thought about everything!!!! :) :)

With this list in mind we set off to do our first step...

Making wands, shields, and swords...

We began by cutting stars on double sided adhesive foam...









And then put on our choices of ribbons and other shiny accessories...









Other friends were busy making shields, choosing the foil for a metallic look and
decorating the shield...









Wrapping the swords with foil..









Decorating them...M made a fire sword...









L as Captain America...



With the ongoing royal ball talk and thoughts, our friends wanted to build a royal carriage. The boys really wanted to make the horses and ride the carriage.

We cut a horse out of cardboard and...





...later they used it as a stencil to trace the other one for cutting out!









Later friends painted the horses and wheels of the carriage...



























Last week we were also inspired by the impressionist artist Monet and his "Lily pads".









We first created a bridge out of paper tape...


















Then used bold colors to swirl the paint over them...









The next day we peeled the tape....









And we're so proud of our unique art!









During the week we also enjoyed celebrating the Indian festival of Holi, which is also known as the Festival of Colors. Thank you to R's family in Blue Room and Teacher Richa who helped make this event so successful. Also thank you to Teacher Jennifer for ordering the necessary supplies even though it was off season. It wouldn't be possible without the entire Creative Minds team who put in every effort to make sure that children have their best of experiences.

R's parents talking about the festival and showing children the bold bright colors that we were going to play with....









Coloring each other and spreading our love and affection!


















Squirting targets...









The colorful girl...









Color, color everywhere...









It is amazing how little moments pile up into a heap of happiness and memories we will cherish forever!!!

Keep seeing you'll around.

Hugs,
Teacher Rashida

With Easter comes Eggs! & Letter X

Hello Purple Room Families,

Our classroom kids have always been fascinated by cracking and feeling both the inside of the egg and its shell. This was the perfect week for them to explore and work with eggs and put their interest into action!

Our week started with egg dyeing...

We added water, vinegar, and the color dye pill and watched the water turn into lovely colors!



Friends using their 'bestest' fine motor skills picked their color egg from the egg coloring basket with a special picking tool...while other friends waited for their eggs to turn darker as they figured out that if they left them in for more time, the darker they got.



Friends at the other center were working to decorate their colored eggs with fancy sleeves and stickers...



Later during the week we did the experiment about 'walking on eggs'. We first did weight experiments to know which could be the toughest part of the egg and soon learned that it was the top and bottom. We placed heavy books and wooden blocks on the eggs and piled them on as much as we could. Guess what? Not a single egg cracked! Children sighed with amazement!






Now that we knew which was the strongest way the eggs could hold pressure, we tried to walk on them. Some friends guessed that we are heavier than the books and blocks so the eggs might crack if we walked on them. There we went to check our hypothesis...






Whoo...friends were astonished to see the strength of these fragile eggs...some even tried to hold the two ends of the egg with their fingers and squeeze, it still did not crack. The tough eggs were passing every test!

However, we spoke about the sides that are very fragile and can crack easily. Most of the friends did understand this distinction after the entire experiment.

One of the other egg activities we did was to create sparkly eggs. We read a story about the goose that laid golden eggs, and everyone wanted to make golden sparkly eggs...

We mixed glue and a little water...friends tossed fake eggs, that looked so authentic and real, into the glue mixture in the red cup and poured tons of sparkles into it to be able to sell it for a higher value to parents ;) Parents, hope you all paid some good price for those ;)






Additionally we did a cooking project related to carrots. We made special orange carrot shaped cookies and dug them into dirt to enjoy them later as bunnies!

Making the orange sugar cookie dough...



Rolling the dough into carrot shapes...

Adding basic elements of the carrot look - pointy down, wider top, the fine lines etc...



L concentrating on her carrot details...



Making the dirt by blending Oreo cookies...children couldn't believe how real the dirt looked and all decided to trick their mommies and daddies that they are going to eat real dirt!



Friends filled their cups with dirt and we stuck the carrots on it...



We gave our carrots their green stems using green frosting to hold the green sour strips...
Tada...our carrot garden ready to be our yummy treats!!!



On Friday of that week we had our most awaited Egg Hunt!

We made our customized bags...







And set out for the hunt...






Time to gather up and check out our hard earned goodies :)


Letter X

We concluded our letter this week with the letter X. Friends chose to collage their letter X with x-rays and xylophones.



Some friend made patterns with X and colored them to look like diamonds! What a great thought and creativity!



We will now be reviewing our letters. For sharing, children can bring any meaningful things, excluding toys, and share what letter it starts with!

Our classroom has been very interested in throwing a prince and princess ball. We will soon be working toward this goal. It is amazing how these kids remind us each time that there is never an end to imagination!

Keep seeing you around,

Hugs,
Teacher Rashida

Colors of the rainbow, Life science, Birthdays, and letter B

Hello Purple Room Families,

Our week commenced with colors where friends loved squirting water colors over paper towels and seeing them spread. They created various tie dye designs while some chose to have fun in their own ways...









What we learned out of the project was the blotting process. Friends were amazed to see the interconnected threads on the paper towels that help the colors spread and blot. We extended this with an analogy of how water go up to the leaves and flowers. To be more objective, we did an experiment with water colors and white roses. We talked and read about how the capillaries in the stems do the same job as the paper towel spreading the color.

It was a learning process and we had to try it out!
We filled vases with colors of the rainbow and added a white rose in each...



We put them on the light table and children drew their observations in their journals while also making different predictions as to whether the rose will change to the color that it drinks or will still remain white.






















The next day children were amazed to see how the science of water for plants works and how the flowers drank the colored water and turned out to be more pretty than before.



We cherished the colored roses and expected them to go darker each day. Somehow we figured out that the edges of the petals definitely reflected the darker shades than the rest of the petals. This experiment helped us advance our thoughts to the processes that plants undergo - a part of life science!

Letter B bought us a lot of exploration and fun!

We made letter B collages using foam balls...



We were busy the entire week learning about the cherry blossoms...
We saw a beautiful video how the Japanese culture celebrates it as an event called the Cherry Blossom Festival, and people come from all around the world too see and cherish the beauty of these beautiful trees!

Later we made our own cherry blossom art...

We started with making the background using chalk pastels on thick cardstock. This was a new learning experience of how to use chalk pastels and how to blend them with our fingers since they are powdery and can be rubbed over the paper...



L blending her colors with her fingers...



We then used black Indian ink, and used straws to blow the ink blobs, making the black cherry blossom trunk and stems...



The next day we made our pink and white blossoms using fingerprints...



During the week we made cherry blossom dough using cornstarch and cherry blossom scented conditioner. Each child enjoyed smelling the soothing scent and the texture of the dough.

Everyone helped in kneading little parts of the dough, and together it was a successful project that we later enjoyed creating things with.



Bursting bubble wraps...

Friends used their gross motor skills and enjoyed jumping on the bubbles and hearing them pop one after the other...



While some friends chose to use their fine motor skills and pop them with their fingers...



We even had two birthdays during B week, and friends noticed how birthday starts with a B...

Congratulations E and L on reaching your 4 yrs milestone! We are so proud of you!

E's mom set up a fun party...
We played 'Pin the teeth on Mater' game where children were blindfolded with their masks and...



...they had to pin those bunny teeth ;)



E blew his no 4 candle, and we enjoyed pizzas and cupcakes...



Party fun!



E's mom also shared her rare bug collection with everyone. It was the highlight of the day!



Happy birthday to L too,and thank you for the yummy treats!



We ended our week making delicious banana bread where children got involved in working with measurements, ingredients, and using kitchen tools - the hand smasher being their favorite one!

S smashing fresh bananas...



M mixing up all the final ingredients using a hand whisker...



We ended the week on a very yummy note! Our cooking projects leave us and the room filled with aromas and the hope of making more!

Keep seeing you'll around!

Hugs,
Teacher Rashida