Books & Ideas to Accompany a Colors Unit of Study

Amy & Julie are kindergarten teachers who often work together to create their lessons.  The duo has been working together for four years now and they share the goal of exposing their students to a wide range of literature through various units of study.   With the use of anchor charts and writing in response to literature, they strive to help the standards come to life for their students.  Their hope is to always create a classroom of lifelong learners.

They begin their school year with a focus on colors.   They have shared with us their favorite books used when studying colors.  These books are not only used as a review of a familiar skills with kindergartners, but a way to cover beginning reading standards.  If possible, we think this lessons would benefit from being projected on a big screen.  This will allow you to point out details and have children come forward and point to letters, words and pictures for all students to see.  We realize this technology will not be available to all teachers.

Suggested activities during the read alouds:

• Find the front and back cover of each book.
• Find the title and author’s name on each book.   We like the idea of using chart paper to create a list of books read.  Write the title on one side and the author on the other side.
• Work with children to distinguish pictures from words in the books.  Discuss that some books only have pictures, some only words and some have both.
• Have students find letters in the book.  Give a child a letter, and have he or she search for the letter.
• Find basic sight words for students who are ready.  For students who are reading, give a child a simple sight word and have the child search for the word on a page.
• Tell students one detail you remember after reading each book.  Have students take a turn sharing a detail they remember.
• Focus on how each picture fits the words on the page.
• Talk about the word character.  Practice identifying the character or characters as each book is read.
• Talk about the word setting.  Practice identifying the setting or settings as each book is read.
• Focus on a color each day of the week.  Have students color or paint with a different color each day.
• Use the color resources found here:  COLORS.  These resources include books for each color, an anchor chart, matching cards and more to help in your study of the colors.

Below we have shared some of Amy & Julie’s favorite books for studying colors.  You can click on each title below to be taken to the Amazon listing.

Of Colors and Things

The Crayon Box that Talked

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

My Crayons Talk

Big Red Barn

Freight Train Board Book (Caldecott Collection)

Mouse Paint

The Color Kittens (A Little Golden Book)

Little Blue and Little Yellow

CCSS Standards which can be addressed through these books and lessons:

K.RF.1a  Distinguish pictures from words by pointing when prompted

K.RF.1b  Locate a letter on a printed page within text

K.RI.5     Identify the front/back cover and title page of a book

K.RI.6    With prompting and support, locate the name of the author and illustrator and define the role in presenting ideas and information

K.RI.7     Recognize the illustrations depict a person, place, thing, or idea that is in the text

K.RI.10   Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding

K.RL.2   With prompting and support, identify orally one key detail of familiar stories

K.RL.3   With prompting and support, define the term character and setting and identify them in the story

K.RL.10   Use pictures and context to aid comprehension and to draw conclusions or make predictions about story context

K.SL.4    Identify and describe familiar things

 

Do you have any favorite books that could be added to this list? Please share below!