Using Colour

Line of Inquiry: People use colour to decorate their homes

While on a search for how colour is used in our school the children noticed that the walls were all different colours. Why do you think someone chose to do this?

"Lots of colours are nice!"

"It makes it happier"

What colour are the walls in your room? 

The colour of your blanket? Blinds? Curtains? 

Who chose those colours? 

What colours would you use if you could decorate your bedroom any way you wanted?
Everyone chose the colour they wanted for their walls; most chose all one colour, Simone chose to make each wall a different colour, and Rocco started out wanting pink walls but decided to add different colours and mixed his own unique shade.

Next, the children added a window to their room and drew what they'd see in their view and chose fabric for their curtains. Bela decided his window would have no curtains.

While choosing the curtain fabric and the blanket for their bed the children were asked to think about the colours of their walls - what colours look good together? Which colours feel good together?

The results . . . . beautiful!!! I would love to spend time in these rooms!

Sofia's room

Rocco's room

Bela's room

Esme's room

Simone's room

Julia's room

"There is colour everywhere!"

Line of Inquiry:

People use colour to decorate themselves and their homes

How have people used colour to decorate our school? The children looked around and noticed the coloured walls and excitedly shared what colour their walls were at home. Where else can we find colour? I wrote the children's ideas on stickie notes as they searched around the room for colour. We will repeat this tomorrow and then organize these ideas into categories.

After some time Simone concluded "There is colour everywhere!"Everyone took a vote; do you agree or disagree with Simone's statement? Everyone agreed.

Can you imagine a world with no colour? "Aaah that would be sad!" "Everything would be just white!" The children watched this video "A Life Without Colour"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA70Zu6E_QI&feature=related

Everyone agreed they are happy they live in a colourful world. They expressed this by taking a colourless paper hat and making it colourful.

Primary Colours

"What are primary colours?" 

This question was asked at the beginning of group time and then again after several activities. The children reflected on any changes in their understanding of primary colours.

Beginning responses:                                         After responses:
"I don't know"                                                   "yellow, blue, red"
"They're dark colours"                                      "blue, red, yellow"
"Green"                                                             "green and purple"
"Caring and sharing"                                         "blue, red, yellow"
"Red, blue, yellow"                                           "My answer's the same"

The children sorted blocks into primary colours and "not" primary colours.

They used primary colour markers to draw pictures.

Before the story "Little Blue and Little Yellow" by Leo Leonni the children played with blue and yellow light rods and discovered how to make green. "Green's not a primary colour" said Julia

After the story the children covered mactac with primary colour cellophane. They noticed that colours changed when the cellophane overlapped. Come have a look, their art looks beautiful in the window!

Colour My World: New Unit!

            Central Idea : Colour is all around us and make a difference in our lives

During Summative Week we will gather the children's prior knowledge of the lines of inquiry:

Change: Colour mixing

Function: Colour is used to a) communicate and b) decorate

Perspective: Colour means different things to different people

 

I led a discussion with the children asking what are the ways people use colour. 

"Rainbows have colours" .....

"To make pictures." .... "We have colours because we like them" were some ideas and then a lengthy conversations on mixing colours took place telling me that the children are coming with some prior knowledge that when colours are mixed they create new colours.

I asked the children to notice the colours they were wearing and noted that Simone was all in pink and when I asked why she said "Because I'm a girl" 

Which posed the question "Is pink a colour that's only for girls?"

"Yes!" - Simone

 

"Boys can alway wear pink!" - Rocco

"Nooooooo" - Simone

 

"Sometimes boys can wear pink" - Julia

"Why?" Simone

 

"Boys can wear pink on Valentine's Day." - Julia

 

"You can always wear pink on Halloween" - Rocco

 

Gender and colour associations is something we'll explore further

 

mixing paint colours

observations

drawing symbols