Story Time Review

Adding a Little Color 

Week five of our Story time session was spent exploring colors. We read Red,Yellow, Green, Blue by Laurie Rosenwald, Except the Color Grey by Arlene Alda, One Sheep, Blue Sheep by Thom Wiley,  Will  You Wear a Blue Hat? by Rookie Readers and Knock Knock by Anna Clara Tidholm. I pulled the book Butterfly: A Book of Colors by Petr Hoereck, but didn't have time to use it.  I also told a story with props about a polar bear who meets other bears or people and wishes to be a different color. I used a clear plastic "honey" bear and sat it in front of a white piece of paper. The bear was mostly full of plain water. When he wishes to be yellow like the Siberian grizzly I added a drop of yellow food coloring to the water. When he meets the forest ranger in his handsome green uniform I added a drop of blue to make the water green. Then when he meets his cousin the brown bear I added a drop of red to create a shade of brown. Everyone tells him that he is being silly that polar bears should be white to hide in the snow and ice. He wishes again and I added Clorox to bleach the colors out and return him to white. This was fun even if it wasn't entirely successful during the first couple of sessions and he ended up turning a pale shade of purple, the kids didn't really care. The key I found for this to really work is only 1 drop of color and a lot (2-3 tablespoons) of bleach at the end.

We used the song I can Build a Snowman from the CD H.U.M.(Highly Usable Music) All Year Long by Carole Peterson. During the song I added some snowman props to the flannel board while we sang along. We did a rhyming movement activity with some easy star shapes, such as red, red, red touch your head and black, black, black touch your back etc.  For our craft, we used brightly dyed macaroni to create some colorful necklaces.

Next week: We will move out of the "colors" unit and talk about sharks!
Michele Schumann, Children's Librarian