Colours

This week, we have been focusing on colours. Colours can be quite a difficult concept to grasp and research has found that the boundaries between different colours is culturally, rather than innately, determined. Knowing which shades belong to a colour category is something which must be learned and can take longer for some children than others. Some researchers suggest that putting the colour after the noun helps. For example, instead of saying ‘the green frog’ say ‘The frog is green.’ This helps children to distinguish that there are two separate aspects to the frog.

We enjoyed reading the Tales from Acorn Woods book called Colours. Whilst reading the book, we talked about the colours that we could see, practising putting the colour before and after the noun. For example, I said that the nut was brown and that the squirrel was eating the brown nut. We used the pictures in the book as stimuli for discussions and to create our own stories. We had some fun imagining what the frog’s letter might say, especially as Betty is beginning to develop her weird sense of humour. “Dear Frog, There’s a poo in your pants, From Bear, hahahaha!”

(EYFS: Communication & Language and Literacy)

On our nature walk, we took a tick list of colours and as we walked, we identified the colours and ticked them off. We photographed everything that we found for Betty’s nature journal. We also collected some items to sort out when we got home.

(EYFS: Understanding the World, Literacy, Mathematics)

We noticed whilst we were out that some of the leaves on the trees were beginning to change colour so when we got home, we created some autumn tree paintings, experimenting with different painting tools such as fingerprints and cotton wool buds. We also spent some time playing with the paint, mixing the colours and generally just smearing it everywhere!

(EYFS: Understanding the World, Expressive Arts & Design)

 

We were lucky enough to see a rainbow occurring naturally, otherwise you can create a rainbow in the garden using a garden hose. The children loved singing about and painting rainbows. We also read about rainbows in Betty’s new book about weather.

(EYFS: Understanding the World, Communication & Language, Literacy, Expressive Arts & Design)