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*Safety Check-In: The activities in this curriculum are intended for family-style use under direct adult supervision. Because every family’s home environment and children are unique, please use your best judgment to ensure a safe experience. Always verify materials—such as plants, food items, or chemicals—for safety and allergies before use, and keep heat sources, tools, and small parts under close adult watch. You know your children best; please adapt these activities as needed to ensure they are age-appropriate and safe for your specific family.
Lesson Plans Coming Soon!
Materials:
- Cloud Art Activity – You can start with this activity as the background for this project or you can use Crayons/Markers/Paints to create any design on white paper.
- Elmers Glue
- Salt
- Watercolor Paints
- Science Readers – Level F (These are amazing resources, super engaging and visual for early readers, and we use them for many, many of our themes – definitely worth the buy! I am including links to levels A-F because we have them out and utilized all year-round by theme rather than level.)
How To
Take your cloud art or colored paper and create a chameleon design with Elmer’s glue. While the glue is wet, shake salt to fully coat the glue, then tilt paper over a sink or garbage to remove excess. Allow to dry. Once dried use your watercolor paints to touch the salt outline. The salt will absorb the color and spread further down almost as if the chameleon is magically changing color. You can try to match the background colors to your chameleon to explain how they camouflage themselves.
Learning Across Ages
Toddlers & Preschoolers: Young learners will love reading about the colors in the book and seeing the magical chameleon change to those same colors. It is a short book, so it’s great for young learners who can not yet focus for long periods of time. Creating these engaging literary experiences makes a more rewarding reading experience that builds and extends focus and creates a deeper appreciation of future literature. Children this age can be introduced to science topics and vocabulary like the rain forest, reptiles, & camouflage.
Elementary: Beginning elementary students will benefit from the reading practice provided through this book series. The visuals are so engaging for a nonfiction book and the pages are kept very short and rewarding for early readers. My children tend to like fictional stories, but these nonfiction readers are some of their favorites. All elementary ages can also learn about the rain forest, reptiles & vertebrate animals, and camouflage.
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