Play Create Explore: Color of the Week: Purple

Welcome back to the

here on Play Create Explore!

We explored Purple this week! Little B (20 mo) really got the hang of this color very quickly! Purple was a really fun color to explore!

This week I used sand and Kool-aid as our main play "ingredients" and just used them in different ways to explore purple. I wanted to do more with a lavender approach, but realized I was out of lavender essential oil, so grape (kool-aid) became our signature scent this week!

Purple Objects Exploration Bin

As always, the first thing we do on the first day of our color themed weeks, is walk around the house and gather a bunch of our toys and other objects for the color of the week. This serves as a bit of an introduction to the color of the week and we also explore this bowl all throughout the week. I keep it right on the dining room table and we often go through this bowl and talk about the things in it during breakfast, lunch or dinner. For my 20 month old, it serves as a great way to identify and verbalize new objects and experience different shapes and textures as well. For my oldest, it's a great tool for encouraging language and communication.

Purple Aquarium Sand Sensory Bin

Our first purple themed sensory bin was really simple...purple aquarium sand bought from the pet store.

After little B played with just the sand bin as you see above for a while, I introduced some purple plastic gems into the mix which jumpstarted his interest again and revitalized and extended his play experience! I know i've said this a million times before over the last few years, but the secret to getting many kids to prolong their play experience is to not introduce all the play "ingredients" right at the start.

Purple Themed Bath

I didn't find time for a more elaborate purple bath setup, but the boys loved their simple purple bath. I scented and colored the water with a few packets of grape kool-aid which smelled out of this world amazing! The polka dots are craft foam (which sticks to wet surfaces by itself) and I wrote on the walls with washable paint which the boys loved washing and cleaning off with rags.

Purple Grape Scented "Dirt"

We've made "dirt" before during our green colored week, and it's so much fun that I actually used the "dirt" we made BEFORE and just re-colored it with a few packets of grape kool-aid which just like in our bath, smelled crazy awesome! To see how to make "Dirt Dough", visit Bath Activities for Kids.

(click the title link below)

Homemade Grape Scented Sand Paint

Purple Themed Lunch

This was perhaps MY favorite activity this week. Our purple themed lunch was a big hit with the boys! They had peanut butter and (grape) jelly sandwiches, plum slices, purple grapes, beet chips, and grape juice. I decorated with some purple streamers and a purple tablecloth that I purchased at the dollar store and then just used the items that were in our purple exploration bin to decorate the table with.

We talked about the stuff on the table throughout lunch. Such a fun memory :)

Purple Aquarium Sand and Foam Letters Sensory Bin

My youngest explored this bin, but it was really a higher learning sensory activity for my son L (4 yrs). He'd uncover a letter and then say what it was. We are working on letter recognition (especially lowercase) so this bin was both fun and educational.

In many sensory bins I give L a paintbrush to uncover it's contents. I've learned that this is just something he LOVES to do. It all started with the Dinosaur Fossil Dig Sensory Bin.

It's like playing detective or archeologist.

What else did we do?

Here are a few other very simple ways we focused on "purple" this week

--We identified purple ALL over the place. If something was white, I identified it and said it outloud.

"The flowers are purple." "The jelly is purple." "What color is that girl's shirt? Her shirt is purple!"

You can never have too much repetition! However, we didn't leave out or ignore other colors though. In our everyday play I still identified other colors, I just put a lot of focus on purple specifically!

We checked out these super cool purple animals.

-We listened to THIS purple color themed kindergarten song on Youtube.

You could also
Make Purple Lavender Scented Epsom Salt for Sensory Play
Make Purple Snow Balls with Fluffy Stuff