YUM!

Last week was my first week back at school and I truly couldn't wait to get into my classroom! Over the summer, whenever I saw any kids, I had to hold back the urge to ask them to sit down with me to make an Art project! Because that wouldn't be weird or anything...

Since I started last year after the school year had begun, I never got to experience the first week of school. With the entire summer to plan, I spent a lot of time thinking and dreaming about what I wanted the first day of Art to look like. Of course we need to talk about expectations and the rules of the Art room, but I also want to inspire and excite my students on their first day, to get their minds spinning with possibilities about what they could create this year(and not to mention, it wouldn't be very fun for me to talk about rules all day!)...

Enter edible color wheels.

Imagine 28 second graders filing in to find the typical pencils, glue, and markers missing, replaced with cookies and colored frosting! Their facial expressions were a mixture of confusion and anticipation! Isn't that how we always want our students to look? After hearing about bits of their summers, new seats, and a quick run-down of the rules, we began our baking debut!

To prep this lesson, I added the red, yellow and blue food coloring to the frosting to create the primary colors, so that the kids wouldn't have to use the food coloring( I had visions of ruined first day outfits!). To start the lesson, we talked about primary and secondary colors( I left out tertiary colors due to time constraints). I put the kids into groups of three and numbered them 1-3. Each group received one color wheel worksheet to complete together(this was a good time to talk about team-work and supporting one another). The students then mixed the primary colored frosting in a new cup to create the secondary colors. Each student in the group got to ice one of the primary cookies and one of the secondary cookies. The number system helped keep the project organized and it allowed time for me to walk around to check to see if everyone had made their color correctly.

The process and results were wonderful! We all had so much fun and most importantly, I truly believe the kids will have a lasting memory of color mixing, and it wasn't too horrible for me either! I can't wait to repeat this project year after year!!!