We've been having fun with rainbow activities and books all week! I've been sharing several of them over on Instagram and on Instagram stories. Are you following Toddler Approved on Instagram? If not, go here. (This post contains Amazon Affiliate links)
A few years ago I was introduced to the most darling board book called Away We Go! We featured it on the blog along with several shape activities inspired by the book. Four years later we still have Away We Go! easily accessible and I am always popping it into a bag when we are going somewhere and need a fun book.
Chiêu Anh Urban, children's book author/illustrator (and author of Away We Go! and a several other books), recently released her newest book Color Wonder: Hooray for Spring! Today I am excited to share a preview of the book along with some book inspired activities with you!
This post is sponsored by Chiêu Anh Urban. All opinions are my own.
Color Wonder Hooray for Spring by Chiêu Anh Urban is a beautiful board book for kids ages 1+. Althought my one-year-old daughter loves fingering the pages and exploring the colors, my nine-year-old was equally as intrigued by the colors and wheels you can turn as you match and mix colors while you are reading the book!
We are always looking for new, beautiful books to add to our home library. This one has been sitting out on our front table so that we can show it off to all of our guests. The colors are bold and gorgeous and the illustrations are simple and fabulous!
Each page in the book introduces a new color and critter (butterfly, bumblebee, etc.) and each page has a little simple rhyming verse. My four-year-old is absolutely in love with rhyming right now, so this has been perfect for him! He loves to find the rhyming words and point them out for all of us.
When little ones turn the wheels on the side they can change the center colors of the flowers to make each page match or just to enjoy mixing colors and have fun exploring them!
If you want to add Color Wonder: Hooray for Spring! to your home library, go HERE to find out more details.
As you can tell by our Weekly Virtual Book Club posts, we love to share book inspired crafts and activities! Today we have three Color Wonder: Hooray for Spring! inspired activities to share with you!
Each activity features bright colors and simple fun! Scroll down to check out each activity and see what materials you'll need!
RAINBOW RAIN CLOUDS SCIENCE
Materials needed: shaving cream, jars, cups, water, liquid water colors, and a pipet or turkey baster
Creative rainbow clouds is a classic colorful fun science activity! We were first introduced to making rain clouds in a jar by Crystal at Growing a Jeweled Rose. We followed Crystal's simple tutorial and then repeated it again and again with rainbow colors! The results were messy and gorgeous!
If you have tried making rain clouds in a jar before, go get the materials and do it! I had fun talking with my son about different colors while we dripped. Once we made our rainbow jars, then we mixed the colors and shaving cream in other jars and cups like our very own science potions lab. The end result was less colorful... since I feel like toddlers and preschoolers always seem to make black and brown once they start mixing.
Watching the colors seep through the shaving cream and drip into the water is so beautiful and magical! It prompts all sorts of conversations about rain and clouds and color mixing.
SHAVING CREAM RAINBOW DRIPS & PRINTS
Materials needed: shaving cream, cups, water, liquid water colors, and a pipet or turkey baster, aluminum pan, toothpick (optional), piece of cardstock
Have you ever tried fizzy drips before? Fizzy drips is a daily/weekly favorite around here because you can do it again and again!
Today we're using a similar drip method, but we're changing up the materials!
To get started we got out an aluminum pan and filled it up with shaving cream. Next I smoothed out the surface of the shaving cream with a spoon to make it as flat of a canvas as possible.
Next, we got our cups of liquid water color and started dripping! We actually used the same cups and watercolors that we used for rainbow rain clouds.
After we did as a many drips as we wanted to do, we put out cardstock face down on to the shaving cream and then we pulled it off carefully!
As we pulled off the paper, a colorful print was left on the paper. It was so neat! It reminded us of puffy paint because the shaving cream was so full and puffy!
Then we covered up our drips with shaving cream to create a flat white surface and then we dripped all over again. This process is so simple. My son is exposed to shaving cream painting activities at preschool quite often, so he thought it was really fun to do one at our house!
We used toothpicks and skewers to mix and swirl the paint once we were done printing, just to explore color mixing a bit as well.
SHAVING CREAM RAINBOW PAINTING
Materials needed: shaving cream, washable paint (rainbow colors), aluminum pan, paper plate, and paint brush.
Since Color Wonder: Hooray for Spring is filled with beautiful pops of color and flowers, we decided to try and make shaving cream painted flowers.
We started by squirting shaving cream into the pan and spreading it out flat again. Then we used our palate of rainbow colors and a paint brush and started painting!
We painted stems and flowers using our favorite rainbow colors! My son used his creativity to try and paint some of the critters from the book as well!
Once we were done painting what we wanted to paint, we covered it over with more shaving cream and started again! The process was quite addicting for me and my 4-year-old! Adding some cookie cutters to help with painting different shapes (and staying within lines) could be fun as well!
Overall we had a magnificent time crafting and creating while reading Color Wonder: Hooray for Spring! by Chiêu Anh Urban.
If you would like to see more of what Chiêu is up to and find our more information about upcoming children's books, and craft activities for kids, follow along on her Facebook page!
You can also visit her website to see her artwork, and connect with her on her blog, where she shares the joy of children's books, crafts, baking and kids' party ideas.
All Toddler Approved readers have also been invited to access some coloring printables/activities from Chiêu Anh Urban that can be printed, and go with Color Wonder: Hooray for Spring!
You can check out more of our color themed activities HERE and even see the rainbow activities our Virtual Book Club for Kids co-hosts are sharing this week HERE.
Do you have any other favorite color themed or color mixing activities that you like to do with your kids or students? Please share them in the comments!
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