Mix and Match: We Share Everything!

Our momstown educational topic for the month of February.  We have been learning all about colour mixing, and also engaging in a variety of different matching activities, including sorting toys by colour (more on that soon) and fitting puzzle pieces onto puzzle boards.  

To practice colour mixing, we filled two cups with a mixture of a primary colour of food colouring and water, and left a third cup empty.  We exercised our fine motor skills by using bulb syringes to transfer drops of each of the primary colours into the third container.  As if by magic, when the drops of yellow and blue food colouring were combined in the third container, they made green water:

And when blue and red combined in the third jar, they made purple:

(yes, those are cookies in the fourth container, you have to fuel your brain to keep the learning going)

We were also lucky to read a "mix and match" themed book at our Scholastic Canada sponsored Tales for Tots book club this month.  "We Share Everything!" by beloved Canadian author Robert Munsch, has recently been released in board book edition.  As anyone who has ever spent time with a group of toddlers or preschoolers knows, "sharing" can be hard concept to master.  It is not always easy to let your friend have a turn playing with a favourite truck or ball.  "We Share Everything!" tells the story of two daycare kids who are finding sharing to be a challenge.

Written in characteristic Munsch style, with lots of repetition and engaging onomatopoeia, the book is a wonderful read aloud story that held the attention of our group of one to three year olds from beginning to end. The kids quickly learned the refrain of "In daycare we share. We share everything" and were able to join in and say the line when it came up.  Listening to the end of the story had its rewards to.  In a surprise ending, the protagonists learned to share, but not exactly in the way that their teacher had hoped.  They shared their shoes, shirts, and pants, and soon had all the other kids engaged in a clothing swap too.  Michael Marchenko's illustrations of the scene in the classroom as this happened had all of us laughing.  Just in case anyone doubts whether these things actually happen, here is a picture of my own nephew engaged in a little mix and match clothing swap of his own:

Congratulations to Gabrielle, Ethan, and Zoe, the lucky family who got to take home a copy of this month's book.  We are looking forward to another Tales for Tots story time in March!