Preschoolers love lots of colors! They love to identify colors, find new colors, and find out what colors make other colors. We did several projects about color mixing and by the end of the week almost all of the preschoolers knew what colors you needed to make green, purple and orange.
We read the books 'A Color of His Own', ' Mouse Paint', ' White Rabbit's Color Book', 'Little Blue and Little Yellow', and 'The Mixed Up Chameleon'.
These have always been some of my favorite stories for teaching colors and the preschoolers loved them! We did quite a few projects to go along with this theme as well. The first one we did was using handprints to show how colors mix together to form a new color. Each child painted their hands either blue/yellow, blue/red, or red/yellow. They placed both hands palm down on a piece of paper. Then they rubbed their hands together to make the new color then placed one hand in the middle of the first two. Very cute!
We did another project that the children really liked. It was a two day project that covered many different realms of instruction. On the first day the children colored coffee filters with markers using red/blue, yellow/red, or yellow/blue. We then sprayed the coffee filters with water to see the colors mix together. (Process art, fine motor, science) This is what they looked like-
The next day, the children ripped the coffee filters into many different pieces and glued them to a piece of construction paper or a coordinating color. (Fine motor, process art) I only have one photo, oops!
Of course we also make color mixing bottle which are simply mixing food coloring in small water bottles and shaking them to see the colors blend. We also added glitter and small beads!
I put out the color mixing paddles in the science center so the children could play with mixing colors on their own. In the sensory center I put out the colored rice which is really pretty and relaxing!
Our name tags were also colors- I simply cut circles out of construction paper and overlapped them. The kids referred to them often while mixing colors! Altogether it was a fantastic week full of colors and learning!!!
These were made quite easily by printing out a bear template, cutting it out and lightly taping it to a piece of white construction paper. The children then painted around the edges of the bear ( and all over the bear! ) using a sponge and blue paint. As you can see, there were varying amounts of paint used between the different children, but the end result was a bear when the template was pulled up!
We read a book about a baby polar bear named Knut who was raised in a zoo. The kids really enjoyed seeing the pictures of Knut as a baby and several of them said they were going to ask their parents for a polar bear next Christmas! We talked about why Knut had to be raised in a zoo and the kind of things that are hurting polar animals (Polar Animals in Danger). After reviewing all of this we made our own baby polar bear! this was based on a craft I found on www.kidssoup.com We used plastic condiment cups that I found at Wal-Mart for $1.27 for 24 cups and lids. We used these for the polar bear nose. I did glue the the cups on ahead of time to help ease frustration :)
Along with our books, crafts and songs I found Arctic Toobs and penguin Toobs at Hobby Lobby. I set these out as learning centers. I also made Arctic Animal cards that have a photograph of each arctic animal and the name of the animal printed underneath. This helps the children identify the animals and match them up with the names. I also put the books of the week at the table so the kids can look at them on their own after we have read them. 
