COLOR
FOCUS: Brown Secondary
Color: Purple
From Stormie:
Show
pictures of and discuss the "golden brown"
color of a baked turkey drumstick! Yum! What's the color of pumpkin
bread?
Show
and discuss real gourds and Indian corn with purple and/or brown in them.
Look at,
touch, smell, and listen to the sounds of dried crumpled brown and purple leaves.
Find the
"purples" in
pictures of sunsets!
Compare
the "browns"
of tree bark, pine cones, leaves, and pine needles.
Collect
animal pictures from magazines. Let children sort out all the brown
animals. Or, focus on brown horses in celebration of the letter Hh.
Multicultural
Connection: Talk about the beautiful shades of brown
skinned people, brown hair, brown
eyes
Color Science Experiments: If children in your classroom aren't
too young, and they already know primary and secondary colors confidently, you
may want to only then introduce them to: Shades
of Color: Define and demonstrate what a light and dark
shade of color is by adding black or white paint to any other color of paint.
Maybe you want to then focus on your colors of the month -- whatever they may
be. As an example, for the color "brown," provide examples of light and
dark brown objects, pictures of brown things, and light and dark brown color crayons
and markers. Provide lots of brushes along with brown, yellow, white, gray,
and black paints. Introduce color words that describe various shades of
brown, then let the children experimentally mix paints. Ask questions like,
"How would you make light brown? Dark brown? Or, how would you
make 'tan and/or beige'?" Laminated paint swatches (from
a hardware store) in various shades of brown are especially neat to have
nearby because your little scientists can place them next to their own paint samples
for comparisons. On another day, you might focus on the color purple: "How
would you make light purple? Dark purple? Or, how would you make 'lavendar,
violet, burgundy, cranberry, and/or magenta'?" (Children love
saying new words!) Do the same thing as above except provide
purple, blue, white, black, and red paints. Further Extension: What color
is copper? Introduce the word "copper." Present copper items (like
pennies) for children to see and investigate as well as pictures of copper things.
Then invite the children to try and create the color of copper by providing brushes
and red, white, and brown paints. Just let them freely experiment!
To decrease the difficulty, or for those not yet ready,
don't get into the fancy color words, but rather discuss them in terms of only
"light and dark" colors.
