Expressing Feelings Using Colors

Learning Resource Type

Learning Activity

Subject Area

Arts Education

Grade(s)

K

Overview

The teacher will read My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss or use an online video to show the book being read aloud. The students will color printouts of each animal in the story and use color to show their mood on a person-shaped printout. Students will cut and glue the printouts to craft sticks to create stick puppets, then use the stick puppets to retell the story to a partner.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Phase

During/Explore/Explain
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): KG - Visual Arts

AE17.VA.K.3

Build skills by following a sequence of steps to create art that expresses feeling and ideas.

UP:AE17.VA.K.3

Vocabulary

  • Art
  • Artwork
  • Collaboratively
  • Collage
  • Cool colors
  • Warm colors
  • Elements of Art
    • Color
    • Line
    • Shape
  • Imaginative play
  • Play
  • Portfolio
  • Primary colors
  • Principles of design
    • Pattern
  • Printmaking

Essential Questions

EU: Artists and designers experiment with forms, structures, materials, concepts, media, and artmaking approaches.
EQ: How do artists work? How do artists and designers determine whether a particular direction in their work is effective? How do artists and designers learn from trial and error?

Skills Examples

  • Create two-dimensional artworks using finger painting, watercolors, paper collage, and rubbings.
  • Create three-dimensional artworks using techniques such as rolling, folding, cutting, molding, pinching, and pulling clay.
  • Work with a partner to create works of art.
  • Working in small groups, use recycled materials to create artworks.
  • Explore the books Why is Blue Dog Blue? by G. Rodrigue and My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss to understand color meanings and moods.
  • Read the book Lines that Wiggle by Candace Whitman to explore different styles of line.
  • Safely use and share scissors, pencils, crayons, markers, glue, paints, paintbrushes, and clay.
  • Use symbols to help tell a personal or make-believe story.
  • Manipulate art media to create textures and patterns.
  • Identify and use organic and geometric shapes to create works of art.
  • Show respect for self and others while making and viewing art.
  • Use the primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) to create a free-style painting while singing the names of the colors.
  • Use patterns in designing colored stripes on the shirt of a person you know.
  • Collect found objects such as paper tubes, forks, and pieces of cardboard. Press them in shallow tempera paint, and stamp them on paper to show printmaking.
  • Create a T-chart that separates cool (blue, green, and purple) and warm (red, yellow, and orange) colors in different columns. Use the symbols of water waves for the cool column header and the sun for the warm column header.
  • Work with a partner to find colors, lines, and shapes in art and tell each other what you see.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.

Learning Objectives

Students will create stick puppet animals that will be used to retell a story to express feelings.

Students will use colors to express their feelings on a person-shaped stick puppet.

Activity Details

1. Read the book My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss or use an online video to show the book being read aloud. As you read the book aloud or watch the video, pause after each animal and discuss the animal's color. Discuss how the color of the animal relates to its feelings and mood.

2. Give each student the three animal cutout pages included in the digital tool. Instruct students to color each animal as directed on the page. For the person-shaped cutout, the students should use colors to represent their current feelings. Remind the students that they may have many feelings, so they can use many different colors. (The students can use colored pencils, crayons, markers, or paint to color the animals and person.) After coloring, students should cut out the animals and person and use glue to attach each cutout to a craft stick. Allow the glue to dry overnight.

3. Pair students into groups of two. Instruct students to retell the story using the stick puppets to their partner. The teacher can select which student retells the story first and remind the second student to add any details from the story the first partner may have left out.

Assessment Strategies

Check each student's person-shaped cutout to ensure the student used appropriate colors to express their feelings. 

Listen to each student's retelling of the story to ensure students are able to express the feelings described in the story using the stick puppets.

Variation Tips

The digital tool provides many additional activities that can accompany a read-aloud of this book.

Background / Preparation

The teacher will need a copy of My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss or the ability to play an internet video with sound to view the read aloud.

The teacher will need to print out the last three pages of the digital tool (pages 14-16) and make copies of these three pages for each student. Each student will need 11 craft sticks to make stick puppets. The students will need colored pencils, crayons, markers, or paint to color the stick puppets, scissors to cut out the animal shapes, and glue to attach the cutouts to the craft sticks.

Book Nook: Ideas for Using Books to Support Social Emotional Development
http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/booknook/many_colored_days.pdf

Approved Date

Owner (Author)

habradley
ALSDE LOGO

This site may contain links to other websites or content belonging to or originating from third parties or links to websites and features in banners or other advertising. Such external links are not investigated, monitored, or checked for accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness by us. WE DO NOT WARRANT, ENDORSE, GUARANTEE, OR ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR RELIABILITY OF ANY INFORMATION OFFERED BY THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES LINKED THROUGH THIS SITE.
Alabama Learning Exchange © 2002-2023 by Alabama State Department of Education is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Design by Adaptive Theme