jelly beans- preschool style

Jelly bean day might have been my favorite day had my kids not been CRAZY.  End of the year, bad weather over the weekend, storm rolling in, whatever- teachers will blame it on all kinds of things. 

I read this story My Garden by Kevin Henkes.  It's about a little girl whose family has a garden and she dreams that her garden grows chocolate bunnies and jelly beans.

Then we looked at many pictures of food and talked about what they are and if they could be grown in a garden.  I got many of the garden pictures from some old calendars that my mom saved for me.  I got the other food items (cookies and pizza, etc) from real simple magazine.  They have great photos for cutting!   One of our little guys knows all the names of random fruits and vegetables.  They eat super healthy at his house and he knows all about persimmons and pomegranates.

Then we worked on the jelly bean prayer.  I sent the jelly bean prayer color booklet home for the kiddos to work on if they wished along with the correct colored jelly beans in a little wax paper envelope.

As we went through the prayer/poem, I used these larger pieces on the felt board.

Jelly Bean Poem

Red is for the blood He gave.

Green is for the grass He made.

Yellow is for the sun so bright.

Orange is for the edge of night.

Black is for the sins we made.

White is for the grace he gave.

 Purple is for His hour of sorrow.

Pink is for our new tomorrow.

A basket full of jelly beans, Colorful and Sweet

Is a prayer, a promise, A loved one's treat!!

I had all  these jelly bean pieces cut out to place in the middle of the floor intending that with each color, the kids would search for their own so that they had a complete set at the end.  The kids were crazy as I mentioned, so I skipped this and will save them for another year or another activity.   Its' a lot of cutting to waste, bu that's just how it goes. 

Then I handed each child a plastic egg with 5 jelly beans.  We went through this little counting rhyme together.

Jelly Bean Countdown

5 little jelly beans I wish I had more! I'll eat the (color) one
Now there are four!
4 little jelly beans Tasty as can be I'll eat the (color) one
Now there are 3!
3 little jelly beans Only a few. I'll eat the (color) one
Now there are 2.
2 little jelly beans Eating them is fun I'll eat the (color) one
Now there is one.
1 little jelly bean The last one for me I'll eat the (color) one
I'm as happy as can be!

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We also graphed some jelly beans that I passed out to the kiddos. I don't have any pictures, but just had them place the appropriate color on our felt board in rows.  I asked some questions about the colors and the numbers.  I love how even little bitty guys can do this kind of math.

Here'  the craft from jelly bean day.  The jars were drawn on the paper and the kids stamped jelly bean shaped sponges in the jar.  The kids held onto the sponges by an empty film container hot glued to the backside of the sponge.   Lou put his in rows.

I found these cards in the paint sample section at walmart.  Some cards have photo of items.  I grabbed one of each of them and was sure that I'd find a game or activity to use them with.  I also grabbed a matching paint color.  I just left them out for the kids and a few of them created their own little game with matching and sorting. 

I also reviewed the Easter story with the resurrection eggs.  I made a bingo sheet to go with it.  I used these print out cards from 1+1+1=1 to go along with it.  I tried leaving out the resurrection eggs and pieces for the kids to play with, but the kids made off with the pieces and I had to track down everything.  Leaving the cards out was safer for all of us, eggs included.   For the bingo game, all the cards were the same and the pictures were in order so that we reviewed the story as we went.  It's just something I made up in word with pictures I google imaged.  If I knew how to share files, I'd would share the bingo sheet.

Edited to add:  This post was late today because we spent last night hunkered down in the basement.  Crazy storms!  We lost the roof off our shed and a bunch of branches, but the house was fine and the kids slept through it!  It was a little exciting in the morning to go see all the wind damage in the neighborhood.