Colors and emotions at nursery school: Little Red Riding Hood and pasta.

Playing with colors the first days of school, keeping emotions in mind.

Early days at kindergarten: intense emotions.

The first days of school are challenging for all students and teachers, but in a kindergarten, both adults and children know this well, these days are a very delicate moment, in which the construction of the group and the definition of its climate play a decisive role.

Living with superficiality this precious moment, often means to witness the triggering of difficulties and labours that will be difficult to recover.

For this reason, it is always good to pay attention to the balance between doing and listening, between proposing activities and feeling in an empathic way both children and parents.

It is a balance to seek, because doing without listening, makes us lose emotionally all those children, especially the youngest or new members, who are engaged in detachment from the family or insertion into a new group and who live emotions in a strong way, Sometimes overwhelming.

Usually these children are very few, but it happens that someone cries for days and does not want to be comforted.

In a kindergarten section, however, even listening without doing is just as dangerous, because for children already well-integrated, it opens the door to distraction and the idea that you can do what you want and this is certainly not what we are looking for as teachers.

Balance then: welcome, listen, console, care but also do, with the many who are already sure and throw themselves without qualms in play, activities and relationships?

Early days of kindergarten: simple goals to set.

It will make those not emotionally involved smile in the first days of school, but if we talk about the first month of school, for young and old, turns and turns, the goal is basically one:

to survive, to the cries, toil, grumbles and tantrums, both at home and in school.

If the core of work is therefore to live the detachment and the new beginning, as serenely as possible, it goes without saying that the main objectives are:

recognize emotions and learn to communicate them using different languages better
Live new experiences positively, sharing them with the new group
Gradually gain autonomy and awareness.

Everything else is really much, comes only later, so well armed with patience, let’s choose and propose activities that can be started and finished in a quiet time, that can be acted or avoided, if it is the case, without creating discontinuities or voids and that can, At the same time, meet all those boys and girls who want to engage and get involved.

Emotions and colors for the first days of school.

For this new beginning of the school year, I have chosen to propose manipulative activities on the three primary colors: yellow, red and blue.

I know that for the little ones the colors are always a discovery and for the big ones a confirmation: being already able to do something or already know a concept or a material, projects them in the size of growth, why they feel important and capable and wish to share with their little ones, all their know-how.

So starting from the proposal of one color at a time, I declined every day a different material to allow the discovery of color through the body.

Tempering, modelling clay, tissue paper, paste, kinetic sand, flour, any material of the color in question, was useful and valuable.

For the discovery of the roso we started from a new version of the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood, born completely by chance.

The traditional fairy tale is very loved by children for the presence of the hungry and fierce wolf that so scares them but then ends badly, so, in a moment of tranquility, I decided to tell it by changing many narrative elements to make the children’s attention converge on the red color.

The girl’s hooded jacket, the strawberries picked up on the trail, the cheeks after the fatigue of crossing the forest, everything in the story was red and in the basket, the granddaughter brought her grandmother not the traditional medicines, but a jar of red tempera to make paintings together.

(As I narrated, I held the jar in my hands and shook it every time I mentioned the red color).

The result is a pleasant version of history and an even more pleasant manipulative activity.

Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf hungry for... something red.

pasta con tempera rossa

Once upon a time there was a little girl just like you, whom everyone called Little Red Riding Hood because she had a little jacket with a red hood and loved it so much that she wore it every day.

Little Red Riding Hood lived with his mother in a small house, right on the edge of the forest and when he wanted to visit his grandmother, he had to go through that dense and dark wood, where hidden, also lived a shrewd and very hungry wolf.

One day the mother proposed to Little Red Riding Hood to go to his grandmother, to spend with her a fun afternoon. The two would draw, paint and finally prepare together a delicious cream cake with red strawberries.

So Little Red Riding Hood prepared her backpack and filled it, not with cough syrup and snack but with a nice jar of red tempera, which she would use to paint together with her grandmother.

She said goodbye to her mother and left, brave and quick, heading into the woods without fear.

He knew the road well and knew that he had to walk on the path in order not to get lost, only at one point, he discovered a meadow dotted with small and juicy strawberries, they looked like many red balls hidden in the grass.

One pulls the other and behold, Little Red Riding Hood, in no time, found himself in a dark and shadowy clearing, which he did not know.

He had lost the way but did not lose heart and began to look for the path now far away.

Near her, he had been watching her for a while, a beautiful wolf with shiny black fur, who had not eaten for a few days and was therefore very hungry.

When he saw it, the wolf thought he could turn that little girl into a delicious meal: what a nice treat, I will eat it with chips and put on it a lot of red ketchup, red.

Came out of the bush and... hello beautiful girl where are you going? Churches.

I’ve lost my way and I don’t know how to get there,' she said. But it’s so easy...

And the wolf began to explain: go from here, turn there, come back then go up and finally arrive at the grandmother.

It is a pity that this was the longest road and while Little Cap went here and there, the wolf hurried, took the shortcut and arrived at the grandmother in a blink of an eye.

He knocked and as soon as the grandmother opened to him, he ate it in one bite, nothing but chips with red ketchup, red; Then tired he took a nice nap, snoring with open mouth and tongue dangling.

What color is the tongue? Of course, red!

Of them little crossed, heated and with cheeks... how are the cheeks when you run? Red!

Little Red Riding Hood arrived and immediately realized that there was something strange: the wolf, before falling asleep, had worn his grandmother’s red dress, but even though he thought himself clever, he could clearly see that he was a wolf: hairy and with two pointed ears and a big black nose.

Little Red Riding Hood thought about it for a while and then decided to act: he began to tickle the wolf, started from the smelly and hairy feet and continued on his legs, belly, under his arms and throat, up to his ears.

The wolf was ticklish and began to laugh skin crack and laughed, laughed until he could not do it anymore and laughing, laughing, opened his mouth and spat the grandmother, all whole as she had eaten.

Happy Little Red Riding Hood hugged his grandmother, while the restless wolf jumped up and didn’t know what to do with that brave girl, who seemed not to be afraid of him.

He stammered, mumbled and at the end said: but I was only hungry!

Grandmother and granddaughter then decided to do something nice together: prepare a good snack for the wolf. Red strawberry cake you will say, red cherry popsicle, a nice slice of fresh and red watermelon... no, none of that.

Hungry wolves like hearty snacks, so grandma and granddaughter decided to prepare a nice plate of pasta with tomato... red.

By the children! let’s help Little Red Riding Hood and Grandma to prepare food for the hungry wolf!

Manipulative and sensory activity on the red colour.

pasta cappuccetto rosso

Prepare the environment for listening to the story, creating an atmosphere that is different from the usual. In order to do this I turn off the lights and, at any time, I tell the stories with a low voice, keeping the children hanging, keeping the thread of the story tight.
After the story, place the children standing around a table and give each one a small bowl. I use food recovery ones, like spreadable cheeses.
Once the cups are ready, fill them with a small pug of dry dough, we have used half pens and fingers. Any format is fine as long as it’s low cost.
Give the children time to familiarize themselves with the material, let them observe, smell, touch, mix and play freely. To mix I gave them the brushes that would be needed later.
After leaving the time to experiment, passes by each child and splashes on the dough "tomato" that is a tiny amount of red tempera. The amount is intentionally minimal to allow children to observe the color transformation and realize whether it is enough to give color to the dough or not.
Pass several times to add the tempera, until you reach the desired color intensity. You will see that the children will take a long time to mix and observe their product.
When you see that the tempera is drying and the pens are drying, you can ask the boys and girls to stop mixing and to dry the dough in the place you have established, placing as far as possible the various pens.
At the end, when the dough is completely dry, move it into a large container with the children. At the end, the product of the manipulation can be used later for a collage.

With this simple activity, you will notice the different approach of each child to the material, some will have used the brush and even the hands, others will have simply mixed.

However, everyone will have experienced the color in an intense and physical way and the wolf will be able to make a nice meal of dry pasta.