A Color of His Own, by Leo Lionni

Every animal has his own special color/s except the chameleon. He changes colors wherever he goes. This is the story of a chameleon that wanted to have a special color like all the other animals. It was not until he met another chameleon did he learn how special he really was.

Materials

Seek and find letter C
Several sponges cut into small pieces.
Chameleons for hiding

Vocabulary

Chameleon (a kind of lizard that can change his color)
Heather (a kind of flowery bush)
Camouflage (to be able to hide or change color into the environment)

Before Reading the Story

Tell the children that you are going to play a same and different game today. Have two children (a boy and a girl) come up to the front of the group. Ask the other children to name ways that the two children are different. (He’s a boy, she has darker hair, he’s wearing pants and she’s wearing shorts). After the children have exhausted how the two children are different, ask them to tell you ways they are the same. (They both have arms and hands, they both are smiling, they are both tall).

Scientific Knowledge and skills; observes and discusses common properties, differences, and comparisons among objects.

Ahead of time, make a simple graph labeled, “Our Favorite Colors” and a name card for each child to stick on. Explain to the children that we are all alike in some ways but each of us is also special and different. Not all people like the same things. Pull out your Favorite Color Graph and hand out the name tags. Ask the children to come up and put their name beside their favorite color. When everyone has done so, talk about the colors and how some people like one color better than another.

Literacy Knowledge and skills; recognizes print in everyday life, such as numbers, letters, one’s name, words, and familiar logos and signs. AND Social & Emotional Development/Self-Concept; begins to develop and express awareness of self in terms of specific abilities, characteristics, and preferences.

Reading the Story

Pause on each page so the children can name the colors.

After Reading the Story

After reading the story ask the children why the chameleon was unhappy at the beginning of the story? (He did not have his own special color). What happened to make the chameleon know he was perfect just the way he was? (The other chameleon said that that was the nature of chameleons). How did the story end? (Happily ever after) If you were a chameleon, what color/s would you like to be?

Social & Emotional Development/Social Relationships; progresses in responding sympathetically to peers who are in need, upset, hurt, or angry; and in expressing empathy or caring for others. AND Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; shows growing interest and involvement in listening to and discussing a variety of fiction and non-fiction, and poetry.

Discovery

Put out red, yellow, and blue stamp pads or paint in shallow dishes. Tell the children that when you mix two colors of paint together you get a new color. Give each child a sheet of white paper. Ask them to dip their left hand in one color and their right hand in another color. Have them print their left hand on the left side of the paper and their right on the right. Ask them what color they think it will make when they mix the two colors together. Then have them make a left hand print and put the right hand on top and mix. What new color did you make? On the bottom of the paper write color left + color right =_____. Have the child repeat the sentence back. Have the children wash their hands before they try two other colors together and see what new color you can make.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to participate in simple investigations to test observations, discuss and draw conclusions, and form generalizations.

Music and Movement

Explain to the children that chameleons move slowly. Put on some slow music and have the children move slowly about the room while looking for an object that is a color on their shirt. Find the object and slowly bring it back to the carpet. Name the color. Put the music back on and the children can slowly go and put the object away.

Creative Arts/Movement;shows growth in moving in time to different patterns of beat and rhythm in music.

Blocks

If you have colored blocks or cubes, feature these in your center today. As the children clean-up their structure, encourage them to clean by colors. (Ryan you put all the red blocks away and Paula you can put the green blocks away).

Mathematics/Geometry & Spatial Sense; shows growth in matching, sorting, putting in series, and regrouping objects according to one or two attributes such as color, shape, or size.

Art

Explain to the children that the illustrator of the story made his pictures by doing sponge printing. Put out small trays of red, blue, yellow, and white paint. Show the children how to sponge print by dipping the sponge lightly in the paint and then moving the sponge up and down, up and down on the paper.

Creative Arts /Art; gains ability in using different art media and materials in a variety of ways for creative expression and representation.

Library and Writing

Chameleons are very good at hiding because they blend/camouflage right in. Ask the children what letter chameleon starts with. Give children a Seek and Find page and ask them to take their favorite color and find all the C’s on the page.

Literacy/Alphabet Knowledge; increases in ability to notice the beginning letter of familiar words.

Sand and Water

Put water in the table today. Ask the children at the table what color food coloring they would like you to add. After they name the color, find a corner of the table and add their color. As you add the second color in a different corner, ask the children what they think is going to happen to the colors when they get mixed.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to participate in simple investigations to test observations, discuss and draw conclusions, and form generalizations.

Dramatic Play

Add many colorful dress-ups today (scarves, hats, jewelry)

Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; increases abilities to sustain interactions with peers by helping, sharing, and discussion.

Math and Manipulatives

As the children are using the manipulatives today, encourage them to make patterns using color and naming the colors in their patterns.

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; enhances abilities to recognize, duplicate, and extend simple patterns using a variety of materials.

Outdoor Play

Make a number of chameleons in colors that are on your playground. Before the children go outside, hide these outside yet in plain view (put a yellow chameleon in a yellow bucket, a brown chameleon in the sand)). Tell the children that there are chameleons camouflaged about the playground today so while they are out they can be on the lookout for them. Bring out a pen and as the children find the chameleons and bring them to you, you can write their name on it. When you go back in the classroom, you can count who found the most.

Approaches to Learning/Engagement & Persistence; demonstrates increasing capacity to maintain concentration over time on a task, question, set of directions or interactions, despite distractions and interruptions.

Transitions

Go back to your Favorite Color Graph and dismiss the children to the next activity by the colors that they chose.

Social & Emotional Development/Self-Concept; begins to develop and express awareness of self in terms of specific abilities, characteristics, and preferences.

Resources

The Mixed-Up Chameleon, Eric Carle

Materials

Poster Board with a simple rainbow design drawn across (see blocks)
Books or pictures off the Internet that show animals camouflaged into the environment.
26-52 Popsicle sticks
Insect page
Chameleons page

Vocabulary

Camouflage (when an animal blends in with the world all around him)
Mixed-up (to be confused about something)

Before Reading the Story

Put a piece of paper on the wall and ask the children what their favorite animal is. Ask them to tell you something that makes that animals really special. Write their response on the paper. I would like to be a ________because______ (A big dog because I could jump on my brother, A butterfly because I could fly).

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Reading the Story

As you introduce the story, hold up the cover and ask the children what do they think it means to be a mixed up chameleon. If no one can answer, explain that to be mixed up means to be confused about something. Ask the children if they can predict what the chameleon might be confused/mixed-up about. As you turn to each new page and the chameleon wishes to be another animal, pause and see if the children can name the animal first.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to describe and discuss predictions, explanations, and generalizations based of past experiences.

After Reading the Story

Go to the last page of the story (the one with the rainbow). Can the children name the animals and the colors? Ask, “Which animal is the color blue? Which animal has wings? “ Look on your chart from before reading to see if any of the children’s animals matched the ones in the story.

Mathematics/Geometry & Spatial Sense; shows growth in matching, sorting, putting in a series, and regrouping objects according to one or two attributes such as color, shape, or size.

Discovery

Bring in pictures or books that show animals camouflaged in nature. Use these to generate discussion of different ways that animals camouflage into their environment.

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; shows growing interest and involvement in listening to and discussing a variety of fiction and non-fiction books and poetry. ALSO Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Music and Movement

Sing Everybody Do This to the tune of Mammy’s Little Baby (Pick a motion/action for all to follow)

Everybody do this, do this, do this,

Everybody do this just like me.

Everybody do this, do this, do this,

Everybody do this just like me.

(Now choose a child to lead)

Social & Emotional Development/Self-Concept; begins to develop and express awareness of self in terms of specific abilities, characteristics, and preferences.

Sing The Rainbow Song (bring pieces of construction paper to hold up as you name the colors while singing) https://kids.niehs.nih.gov/games/songs/childrens/sing-a-rainbow/index.htm

Red and yellow and pink and green,

Purple and orange and blue,

Black, brown and white

I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow,

Sing a rainbow. Can you?

Creative Arts/Music; participates with increasing interest and enjoyment in a variety of music activities, including listening, singing, finger plays, games, and performances.

Blocks

On a piece of poster paper make a simple rainbow using the colors of a block set you have (Legos, Duplo’s, unifix cubes, or small colored wooden blocks). Put out the blocks and encourage the children to match the colors and fill in the rainbow.

Mathematics/Geometry & Spatial Sense; shows growth in matching, sorting, putting in a series, and regrouping objects according to one or two attributes such as color, shape, or size.

Art

Ahead of time, use the chameleons’ page to make chameleons of different colors and cut out. Put these out on the art table with plenty of supplies for the children to collage. Explain to the children what the word camouflage means. You might even bring in a picture of an animal/s that are camouflaged in natural settings. Give each child a chameleon. Challenge the children to camouflage their chameleon within their picture?

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; develops increased ability to observe and discuss common properties, differences, and comparisons among objects and materials.

Library and writing

Use the list that the children made during the ‘Before Reading the Story’ Session. Encourage them to draw their animal. Write the name of their animal on a piece of paper and ask them to try to copy the animals name onto their picture.

Literacy/Book Knowledge and Appreciation; shows growing interest in reading-related activities, such as asking to have a favorite book read; choosing to look at books; drawing pictures based on stories; asking to take books home.

Cut out/around each insect on the page. Write an alphabet letter on each one. Take a loop of tape and attach to the insect at one end. Attach a loop of tape to the end of a Popsicle stick. Explain to the children that the chameleon has a very long and sticky tongue like a frog. Tell the children that they are going to pretend the Popsicle stick is their long and sticky tongue and to see if they can pick up letters with it. Make small cards ahead of time with a letter written on it. The child can match the letter to an insect. Ask the child to find a letter that is in their name. To make this more challenging, we have done this with party blowers by attaching the tape to the end and then the children blow it causing it to unroll and catch an insect. You can also include several numbers to see if the children can distinguish letters-numbers.

Literacy/Alphabet knowledge; knows that letters of the alphabet are a special category of visual graphics that can be individually named.

Sand and Water

Put small animals and sand in the table today. Give the children tongs to use to poke around in the sand and pick up the animals. Can they name the animals that they have picked up?

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; develops growing strength, dexterity, and control needed to use tools such as scissors, paper punch, stapler, hammer.

Dramatic Play

Put out any dress-ups that you might have that represent animals. (We have tiger striped gloves, a scarf with a snake looking skin design, several animal tales, and a chicken suit.) Again, take your list of the children’s favorite animal and why. This time ask them to act their animal out. Can they remember any of the animals in the story? What did these animals have that made them special? Can the children act out these animals?

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; demonstrates progress in abilities to retell and dictate stories from books and experiences; to act out stories in dramatic play; and to predict what will happen next in a story.

Math and Manipulatives

Make many chameleons and color them in 1-3 different colors. Use these to make patterns for the children to copy. ABAB, ABCABC,ACCBACCA. Encourage the children to try to make their own pattern for you to copy.

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; enhances abilities to recognize, duplicate, and extend simple patterns using a variety of materials.

Outdoor

Play Simon Says using colors. “If you’re wearing red, jump across the yard. If you’re wearing purple skip across the yard.”

Physical Health & Development/Gross Motor Skills; shows increasing levels of proficiency, control, and balance in walking, climbing, running, jumping, hopping, skipping, marching, and galloping.

Transitions

As the children go to the next activity, ask them to think about and respond to the following sentence; ‘I like to be me because I can__________. ‘ Write their responses on another piece of large paper and hang next to the first chart.

Social & Emotional Development/Self-Concept; begins to develop and express awareness of self in terms of specific abilities, characteristics, and preferences.

Dear Parent- Today we read a story that involved many colors. Think of two colors that your child may not be too sure about and go together on a color hunt looking for that/those colors around the house.

Resources

Elmer, by David McKee

Elmer is not your typical elephant, he sticks out from the rest. This is a story that teaches children to accept and value others for their unique characteristics and to take pride in being yourself.

Materials

Many colors of tissue paper cut into one inch squares
Template of Elmer the Elephant to use with art
Seek & Find Alphabet page
Camouflage animal cards

Vocabulary

Absolutely (entirely or extremely)
Camouflage (to be able to hide in plain sight)
Enormous (very, very large)
Unique (original, one of a kind)

Before Reading the Story

Ask the children if they know what the word camouflage means. Show them the pictures of the camouflaged animals one at a time and see if they can find the animal. After you have shown them the cards, show the children the cover of the book. Ask them if they can tell what kind of animal the story is about today. Introduce the book.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Reading the Story

When you get to the page where Elmer was looking for the bush covered with elephant-colored barriers , ask the children what do you think Elmer is going to do? Why do you think Elmer is doing this?

After Reading the Story

In the story, Elmer is part of a herd of elephants. Tell the children that your class is kind of like a herd. You are all part of the same group and each contribute something special to the herd/group. Talk about how each member of the group brings something special. Go around the circle and say something special about each child (Lee has a pretty singing voice, Michael always has a smile, Lolly shares when she plays, and Danny is good at saying please and thank you). Ask the children if they can think of anything else special about themselves that they would like to share (My Mom says I’m beautiful, I know how to make burritos in the microwave).

Discovery

Add any books that you might have about animals that camouflage or elephants.

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; shows growing interest in reading-related activities, such as asking to have a favorite book read; choosing to look at books; drawing pictures based on stories; asking to take a book home; going to the library; and engaging in pretend-reading with other children.

Music and Movement

Elmer is part of a herd of elephants. Try moving around the room or on the way to the playground as a herd (sticking close together).

Teach the children the Elephants Have Wrinkles song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJonGSbUWXE

Put on the Youtube song, Colors, by Learning Station. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZJFzUzulXA

Teach the children the song, One Elephant Went Out to PLay. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQf6yWEScB8

1 Elephant went out to Play,

Went out to play

Upon a spider’s web one day.

He had such enormous fun,

He called for another elephant to come… “Oh, ELEPHANT!”

Two elephants…

Three elephants…

Four elephants…

Five elephants went out to play

Upon a spider’s web one day.

The web went creak, the web went crack.

And all of the elephants went KERSPLAT!

Blocks

Put out your one-inch cubes. Make cards showing the numbers 1-10. The child picks up a card and must stack that many cubes. Encourage them to not to put two of the same color cubes side by side.

Mathematics/Number & Operations; begins to use one-to-one correspondence in counting objects and matching groups of objects.

Art

Cut out simple elephant shapes for the easel. Put out red, yellow, and blue paint. The children can experiment mixing colors.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to use senses and a variety of tools and simple measuring devices to gather information, investigate materials, and observe processes and relationships.

Cut out many 1-inch squares from colored tissue paper. Put school glue into cups, one cup per child along with a small paintbrush. Give each child an Elephant template. Show the children how to paint the glue onto the paper and then put a piece of tissue paper on top of the glue. Encourage the children to fill the entire elephant shape with tissue paper squares. When it is dry, cut out the elephant shapes and hang them on the wall.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; progresses in abilities to use writing, drawing, and art tools, including pencils, markers, chalk, paint brushes, and various types of technology.

Sand and Water

Add any item you have that is multicolored and the children can scoop or pour. I like to use the water beads that swell up. These are fun for the children to scoop and put into bowls.

Library and Writing

Put your capital magnet letters into a bowl and give each child an elephant alphabet card. Have the children take turns picking a letter, naming it, and then finding it on their page to color. Encourage them to color like a patchwork where no two same colors are touching.

Literacy?Alphabet Knowledge; identifies at least 10 letters of the alphabet, especially those in their own name. AND Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; progresses in abilities to use writing, drawing, and art tools, including pencils, markers, chalk, paint brushes, and various types of technology.

Dramatic Play

If you have any patchwork blankets or clothing, make note of it to the children. Encourage the children to speak kindly to one another.

Social & Emotional Development/Social Relationships; shows progress in developing friendships with peers. AND Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; shows increasing abilities to use compromise and discussion in working, playing, and resolving conflicts with peers.

Math and Manipulatives

Put out Duplos or Legos. Show the children the cover of the Elmer story and say, “Elmer was made of patchwork, can anyone guess what this means”? If the children do not know, explain that patchwork means to be made of many colors and that no two of the same color can touch. Challenge the children to make a patchwork using the Duplos or Legos. Leave the book in the center to give the children guidance.

Creative Arts/Art; gains ability in using different art media and materials in a variety of ways for creative expression and representation. AND Approaches to Learning/Engagement & Persistence; demonstrates increasing ability to set goals and develop follow through on plans.

Outdoor Play

Play a color game today. Call out colors and actions to go along with. If you are wearing red, jump up and down, if you are wearing blue run to the tree and back.

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; shows progress in understanding and following simple and multiple-step directions.

Transitions

Tell the children that elephants are really, really big. Another word for this is ‘Enormous’. Ask the children to name enormous objects as they go off to the next activity. Have them answer you in a full sentence. A __________ is enormous.

Language Development/Speaking & Communicating; progresses in clarity of pronunciation and towards speaking in sentences of increasing length and grammatical complexity.

Resources