The Color Purple

[60 Minutes]

Make today a purple day as you and your child hunt through the house for purple items!

You'll need:

• grape juice • peanut butter • grape jelly • construction paper • red and blue crayons • purple grapes • food coloring • bread • water • glue • red and blue paint • red and blue markers

What to do:

1. Start your day by searching through your wardrobe for purple clothes. Choose at least one item of clothing for each of you to wear.
2. Have grape juice for breakfast. Invite your child to try purple grapes and compare the taste to that of the juice.
3. Let your child freeze leftover grape juice in paper cups, inserting a craft stick in each, to make purple Popsicles.
4. Go on a "Purple Hunt" around your home. How many items can your child find?
5. For lunch, let your child spread grape jelly on a peanut butter sandwich.
6. Visit a hardware or paint store and pick up paint samples in different shades of purple. Bring them home and encourage your child to use them to make a purple mosaic collage.
7. Look for purple flowers in a garden or visit a florist and see the different varieties of purple flowers.
8. Challenge your child to create the color purple by mixing red and blue paint. He can also experiment with red and blue food coloring in a small dish of water to make water colors. What happens when he draws with a blue crayon over a red one? With markers?
9. Take hard-boiled eggs and dye them purple with food coloring (red plus blue). Enjoy the eggs and then encourage your child to glue the shells on a sheet of construction paper making a purple eggshell collage.

Let's Talk: Ideas to Explore Together.

• How many purple things did you find in our kitchen? Which ones could you eat?
• Do you think you could find purple things outdoors? Name some.
• How does "purple" smell? Feel? Taste? Sound?

Useful information:

While you are having fun together, this activity helps your child develop observational skills, matching skills, and an understanding of color.