Mixing colours with Shaving Cream!

Date: 28/10/11 (Friday)

After observing my focus child Archie during the first week of prac I noticed that he is really intrested in mixing colours. Margi one of the teachers in the Sapphire room did an experience with the children mixing blue and yellow watered down dye in sand outside. Margi told me that she did this experience for Archie as he really loved to mix colours.

So on Friday I decided to set up a sensory experience of mixing coloured tempura paint into shaving cream. I set up the experience at 10.15 am at a large table of six. I decided that I would do the experience with the children rather than simply watch as the children love it when adults get involved and it allows them to learn through modelling. I set up five trays one for me aswell, I then put the powdered tempura paint in cups with spoons and placed it in the middle of the table along with the shaving cream.

The first group of children that engaged in the experience included all three of my focus children; Archie, Beau and Alannah. Skye and Benjamin also joined the experience. At first the children and I discussed the different colours on the table that including all three primary colours; red, blue and yellow. I passed the shaving cream around and the children sprayed two separate piles on their trays. We then added two different colours off paint to each pile. We discussed what colours the children chose and what they would make. Then we started to mix...

The children mixed in their colours and were very excited to see what happened, there was lots of discussion going on. The children had lots of fun with this experience and wanted to add more and more paint onto their trays (too much paint!). We all had very very messy hands and made lots of mess on the trays. Archie really enjoyed this experience he discussed the colours being mixed and was keen to add more colour to see the results. Beau also really enjoyed this experience, he loved mixing his hands in the cream and kept lifting them up to show me how messy they were. Alannah was hesitant to touch the shaving cream at first and observed the other children before she decided to get her hands all messy. However once Alannah did feel the cream she loved it alot and couldnt wait to add more shaving cream.

Overall the experience was alot of fun and the children learnt about colour mixing!

Reggio Emilia:
During this experience I tried to take on the approaches of a Reggio Emilia teacher by allowing the children to generate their own hypothesis and use experimentation and investigation in order to find out the outcome. I did this by not telling the children what their two chosen colours would make, instead I asked each child what colours they had and then asked them what they think it will make. I then told the children to start mixing to find out for themselves rather than tell them.