Red Ladybug Math

I try to incorporate some basic math in every theme we do.  This week we did some ladybug math.  I have a ladybug hole puncher from Monkey A's birthday party, but you could cut some simple red bugs (think circles with some eyes on them) from red construction paper:

I drew a jar on a piece of paper and wrote some basic math problems for Monkey J:
 

Monkey A loved the red ladybugs as well:

So for her, I grabbed one of our bug trappers and she put the bugs in one by one; great for practicing some fine motor skills:

My favorite bug is definitely the ladybug - what's yours?

Red Shadow Coloring

Monkey J loved this activity and called it "Magic Letters" :)  It can be done with any theme, so try it out!  You simply need two sheets of paper, some letters (I found ours at The Dollar Tree), some tape, and a crayon.  Because Monkey J is all about letters and spelling these days, I had him pick out the letters we would need to spell "red":

Tape down the letters on one piece of paper:

Place tape in the 4 corners of the other piece of paper and place on top of the first piece of paper:

Then let the coloring begin.  It's probably best to remove the paper from the crayon and use the crayon sideways to color, but Monkey J wanted to use the crayon the correct way ;)

After some coloring, you will see the letters begin to emerge:

Just like magic!

Red Week: Red Noodle Spelling

I had a red pool noodle and was determined to use it for our red week, so I decided to do some noodle spelling.  I cut up the noodle into pieces using a sharp knife:

And wrote some letters on it, including the letters R, E, D, O, and J in order to spell RED and ROJO:
 

I wrote RED and ROJO on the pool noodle and then cut them as well:

  
I laid them out and let Monkey J start spelling out the words:

A fun way to use a pool noodle!  What's your favorite way to use a pool noodle?

Red Week: Sensory Bin

We started off our red week as we typically do, with a sensory bin:

For this sensory bin, I used bath salts as the filler.  I found these pink ones at the Dollar Tree:

Dropped in some food coloring and rubbing alcohol:

Shook them up to mix the red through the salts:

And then laid them out on some tin foil to dry:

Note:  Mine didn't try too well (I used a bit too much rubbing alcohol to make sure the red would stick to the pink salts) but I simply stuck them in the oven on 170 degrees for about 20 minutes and they came out perfectly!

Here's our red week set-up:

We are so excited to explore the color red!

These salts were a fun filler - what's your favorite filler for your sensory bins?