COLOR FOCUS: Primary Colors Red, Blue, Yellow

   
From Stormie:

Although I'm posting ideas below as often as I can, my very favorite activities have been reserved for my "COLORS" booklet.  I create and sell booklets and other teaching aids to help defer the costs of keeping my website on the internet.  You can find my booklets and games here in "Stormie's Stuff for Teachers" then keep hitting your back button to return to this page.  Financial donations are also greatly appreciated as my website is now a part-time career for me.

Red Fruits: Have a red fruit day: Let children compare the appearance, touch, smell, and taste of apples, tomatoes, red peppers, and strawberries.  Compare the seeds too.  Compare the apple and tomato skins.

Fruit Prints: Cut an apple, red pepper, and firm tomato in half horizontally and allow the children to dip them in red paint and make prints on yellow paper.
Making Comparisons/Blue Prints: Cut another set of the same above fruits in half horizontally, and cut a third set vertically in half.  Allow children to observe the differences in the two sets of cut fruit.  Have them dip the vertically-cut fruit halves in blue paint and make prints on yellow paper.

Pretending:
*Pretend you are eating a big red apple!  Now pretend you are eating a big red strawberry!
*Pretend you are a bluebird flying in the big blue sky!
*Pretend you are walking under the bright yellow sun on a very hot day!

Big Blue Sky: Cover a table with butcher paper and let the children freely paint the big wide blue sky using large as well as small brushes dipped in various shades of blue paint.  (This activity practices small and large motor skills as arm, hands, and finger movements are involved.)  Once dry, allow children to take home a piece of the "sky."

Mini Color Albums: Cut pictures of single familiar "red" items from magazines and place them into those little photo albums you get with your developed pictures from Wal-Mart.  Place the item on one side and print the word on the other side. Children can sit down with the album during "Free Choice" time and "read" the mini red book.  Do the same thing with other colors, or you could have a primary color album and a secondary color album if you wanted to make bigger albums.  I like to read the albums at Group Time first and then place them in the Language Center.  (Right, most of the children can't truly read the single words but they are being exposed to language, which is the whole purpose.)

Small Manipulatives Learning Center:
On a day when you are focusing on the colors of the month, put out any game with interlocking pieces, but put out only the red, blue, and yellow pieces.  Make a note to do this with other colors too.

Pre-Math Learning Center: Put out your set of bear (or dinosaur, etc) counters and instruct the children to sort out all the red, blue, and yellow ones.  Make a note to do this with other colors too.

Blocks Learning Center: If you have a set of those little colored blocks, you could pick out the red, yellow, and blue ones and add them to the Blocks Center for the day you're focusing on colors.  Make a note to do this with other colors too.

Science Learning Center: If you don't have color paddles but you do have various colors of cellophane (not plastice wrap), cut medium sized squares from the red, blue, and yellow.  Children can place one color over another to create another color.  
To Create Color Squares From Plastic Wrap: Cut out a medium-sized square shape from posterboard.  Fold it in half and cut a rectangular shape from the folded edge, which leaves you with a square stencil.  Cut a square from colored plastic wrap that is the same size as the posterboard square stencil.  Place glue on all four sides of the stencil and then glue the plastic square on it.  Now cut out another posterboard square stencil (same size) and glue that atop the plastic wrap.  Now you have a little framed colored square.  Make three (a red, a blue, and a yellow one).  To play with them, children simply hold one square on top of another to create a new color.

Plain Old Coloring Books: Every now and then, I like to buy real cheap coloring books from dollar stores that have large single pictures in them that I can xerox.  Then, I place a stack of these "coloring sheets" in the small manipulatives learning center each month just in case a child wants to do that old-fashioned relaxing activity of plain old "coloring with crayons."  I like to choose items that dictate using our colors of the month.  For example, in September, the coloring sheets might be of apples and tomatoes for children to color red if they want (but it's their choice).

Language Center Activity: Create two sets of cards: One set has a large splash of color on each card, and the other set has a color name on each card (printed in that color).  Children match the color word card to the color splash card.

Gross Motor: Post a piece of red, blue, and yellow construction paper on the wall at child's eye level.  Have children take turns throwing a beanbag at the color you tell them too.  Make a note to continue doing this as the year goes on, adding more colors along the way.
Variation #1: If you have enough boxes, you could cut a hole in the bottoms of all of them, then paint the bottoms (with the hole), and then children can throw the beanbags through the holes.
Variation #2: Combine the concepts of colors and shapes by cutting the holes in different shapes (circle, square, triangle, rectangle, star, etc) rather than all in one shape.
    Extension: Tape a number card above the holes.  Children then throw that many beanbags through that hole.

Color Play: Divide the children into three groups and give them all musical instruments.  One group is red, one is blue, and one is yellow.  They are to play their instruments when you hold up their color (construction paper) and stop playing immediately when you lower their color.  Depending on the developmental level of your group, begin slowly holding up one color at a time, then add variety to your moves (raise and lower a color quickly, hold a color in each hand, etc). Variation: If children know the names of the instruments, you could: "All the triangles play when you see red, all the drums play when you see blue, and all the rhythm sticks play when you see yellow."  
Note: If this is the first time the children have been introduced to a set of children's musical instruments, introduce the various instrument sounds and how to play them, followed by days of allowing the children to just "practice."

Bulletin Board Decor: Colored Rings: Have children dip the ends of plastic or strong cardboard tubes into light blue and light yellow paint then make prints on a sheet of butcher paper.  This can then be the background for a bulletin board.  This activity combines both the shape and the colors of the month.

Color Show-N-Tell/Language: Have children bring something red, blue, or yellow (or all three) from home for show-n-tell.    

Yellow Fellows: Give each child a small banana and let them draw or collage a face on the outside.  They can take their "Yellow Fellows" home.

Here's one of my own super easy "Color" songs:
Colors
(Tune: First two lines of "Mary Had a Little Lamb")
I can name (primary color name) things, (primary color name) things, (primary color name) things
I can name (primary color name) things, can you name (primary color name) things too?
Sing the song yourself then name something (ie: if the color name is green, you could say "green leaf"), then choose a child to name an item that color.  Provide pictures if needed, or have children look around the room and find something that color for naming.  Obviously, you can use the same song for secondary colors.

Patterning: Cut out several red and yellow apple shapes.  Make a pattern on a table and then have a child copy it.  Examples might be:
1. red, yellow, red, yellow, red, yellow
2. red red red, yellow yellow, red red red, yellow yellow, red red red, yellow yellow
3. yellow yellow yellow, red red red, yellow yellow yellow, red red red, yellow yellow yellow, red red red
Note: Yes, I purposely used gold rather than yellow above because yellow won't show up enough for you to see it on this blue background.
Here's an extension to the above activity that combines an idea of mine with an idea from Christie:
Handprint/Footprint Patterns: When doing the color red, have each child place a red paint handprint and footprint on a strip of butcher paper.  Save the paper strip and do the same thing when you do blue and yellow.  Once finished and all is dry, cut out the prints and let children use them for patterning games throughout the year (or for as long as the prints last -- they may not last all year).  Patterning games can be made from the colors as well as from the prints:
1. foot hand, foot hand, foot hand..........
2. hand hand foot, hand hand foot, hand hand foot..............

Please share your ideas by e-mailing me at stormie@preschoolbystormie.com

This truly wonderful idea comes from Geri E., Goldsboro, North Carolina:
Color Party: I focus on one color per month, and at the end of that month, we have a "color party" featuring that month's color.  For instance, when our color was "blue," we made Blue's Clue's Applesauce and blue Kool-Aid Jammers, we ate with blue spoons, used blue napkins, and we all wore blue clothes.  In May, we review all the colors by having a "rainbow party." Children love parties so much and it's just one more fun way to reinforce a concept.

From one of my website visitors who didn't leave a name:
Aug Playdoh + Sept Playdoh = Oct Playdoh: Stormie, we begin our first month of the school year (August) with red playdoh and then make some yellow playdoh about mid September.  During the last week of September, we have the children combine the two playdohs.  Now we have playdoh in one of our October colors -- orange! 

Here's an absolutely fabulous idea from Samantha Turner, in Dalton, Georgia:
Storage Idea and Learning Colors At the Same Time: I use empty nut canisters to store crayons upright.  I place one color of crayons in each container and then wrap the cans in the same color construction paper, and then I print the color word on the outside of each can.  This helps the children sort crayons by color, recognize color words, and it's easy access when you need a number of crayons the same color!  Plus, you have a lid for storage.

From Cherie Stanley, in Evangeline, Louisiana:
Scratch and Sniff For Red: I like to draw some kind of "red" picture on an index card (like a strawberry).  The children brush glue over it and then sprinkle it with strawberry jello.  When dried, it becomes a "scratch and sniff" card!  Of course we discuss the importance of NOT licking the card.

Here's a bunch of "Color Red" ideas from Michelle:
Gross Motor: Dancing With Red: Provide the students with red scarves to dance to music with.
Library Corner: Clifford Station: I found a cute stuffed "Clifford, the Big Red Dog" at a garage sale!  (Keep your eyes open at garage sales and thrift shops for stuffed toys to add as reading buddies in your Library Corner.)  I created a "Clifford Station" where my collection of Clifford books were all then displayed with the stuffed Clifford.  The stuffed Clifford can be used as a puppet too whereby you ask Clifford to read a story about himself to the children.  The kids just love it!
Unique Red Snacks: Very mild red salsa with chip dippers, noodles in red tomato sauce, red fruit punch
Art Project: Tissue Clifford: This project focuses on the "Clifford" books, and can be made into an adorable "literature of the month" bulletin board: Give the children Clifford-shaped poster board (or tagboard) cutouts.  Instruct them to tear pieces of red construction paper (or tissue paper) and glue the pieces onto Clifford.  Tell them not to forget to draw a black nose and eyes on Clifford.  (A "wiggle" eye can be glued onto him -- optional.)  After the dogs are dry, I create a bulletin board using red lettering to spell out "We love Clifford the Big, Red Dog!" and I add the children's creations to the board.  I also cut out black circles to create doggie pawprints as an accent.
Storytelling: Little Red Riding Hood: When I read the story of "Little Red Riding Hood," I wear a red cape I made from simple fabric and a pinch-clothespin!  I add my own flannelboard pieces of the story to a picnic basket and pull them from the basket as I tell the story.  At the end, I surprise the children by pulling a Big Bad Wolf bag puppet out of the basket and instruct them (in my gruffest voice), "And the Big Bad Wolf reminds you to never talk to strangers!!"
Dramatic Play: Little Red Riding Hood Props: Provide props for the students to recreate the story of Little Red Riding Hood: A cape, basket, wolf ears and gloves, granny-type shower cap with glasses, an old nightgown, and slippers, and a woodsman cap and flannel shirt for the woodcutter.  The children usually put together quite a show using some simple clothing props and their own imaginations!
Snack: "Treats for Granny": The children mix all these ingredients together in individual Ziploc (or zippered) sandwich bags and then eat: Raisins, dry cereal (like Rice Chex), pumpkin seeds, coconut, and dried banana chips.
Song: "Thinking Red" (Tune: Mary Had a Little Lamb)
I can think of something red,
Something red, something red
I can think of something red
A fire truck is red!
(Repeat the song several times, changing the underlined word each time to something else that's the color red.)
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Suggested Book:

From Bonnie T. in Colorado Springs, Colorado:
Mouse Paint, by Ellen Stoll Walsh: A synopsis (from Barnes & Noble) reads, "Three white mice live on a piece of white paper so the cat can't find them.  One day they climb into jars of red, yellow, and blue paint then skate through paint puddles creating green, orange, and purple.  They paint the paper, leaving just enough white space to hide from the cat."

Making a Multi-Cultural Connection:
To provide a frame of reference, show children where countries are located on your classroom globe or map, and if possible, provide related pictures and books:

From Bonnie T. in Colorado Springs, Colorado:
Japan (located on the continent of Asia):
The themes of the "color red" and the "shape circle" tie in with the introduction of Japan to children since the Japanese flag consists of a big red circle.
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