My many colored days...

In case you can't yet tell {and just wait until May!} I am a teacher who looooves a good theme.  And every year I dread the third quarter because we just don't seem to have many fun, special, theme days.  So I got to thinking and decided since we always teach color words as sight words during third quarter anyway, why not make a day of it?!  We introduce one color word each week, along with the regular word list, and on Thursdays we do it up right!  This is the first year so I don't have a lot of activities or projects yet {especially since this is on top of our regular daily schedule} but here's some of what we've done so far.

RED DAY!  The kids wore red, brought in red items, wrote in red marker and we had a red strawberry snack.  We also read "The Little Red Hen" by Paul Galdone.  After a discussion on responsibility and fairness, I let the kids discuss back and forth whether or not the little red hen was just in eating the whole cake herself.  I really wanted to do a point of view activity with my students but wasn't sure if they'd grasp the concept...and they totally did!  Each child chose to either be the cat, dog or mouse and wrote a letter to the little red hen explaining their thoughts on the matter.  Here are a few of my favorites:

{This child was INSISTENT on being the Little Red Hen...and his reading expression was spot-on!}

"Dear Dog, Cat and Mouse, You should do some work. If you don't, you will not get no cake.  Love, The Little Red Hen."

"Dear Little Red Hen, I am sorry for not helping you make the cake.  I did not deserve it.  I am sorry for being lazy.  Love, The dog."

"Dear Little Red Hen, Maybe next time you must give me a cake.  Why don't you make another one.  Love, The cat."

"Dear Little Red Hen, I am sad.  I am sorry for not doing my chores.  I'll do it next time.  Love, The mouse."

This display is nothing fancy or cute but the kids worked really hard and showed a lot of thought by writing from a character's POV so I had to put them up somewhere quickly.  This year they colored and cut out the picture.  Next year I'll have to come up with a better display.

We also made red Circle Maps {apple maps??} of red items we found in magazines.

 

YELLOW DAY!  The kids all wore yellow, brought in yellow items from home, wrote in yellow marker and we ate bananas for snack.  Then we read and sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and talked about the -ar sound.  I talked a little bit about the Bossy R and we brainstormed a few examples.  Then the kids added their own -ar words and pictures.

PINK DAY!  We wore pink, wrote in pink, chewed pink bubble gum and made pink Circle Maps.  Then after reading "Pinkalicious" by Victoria & Elizabeth Kann, the kids responded to the story by writing about a time they ate too much of something too.  We were writing in booklets and focusing on a beginning, middle and end.  Most of them wrote about what they ate too much of, what happened and what they had to then do to turn back to normal.  I let them choose their own details and we had a lot of creativity!  :)  I had to hang them in the hallway for everyone to see.

Most of the titles were great-alicious like this one:

BLACK DAY!  Black week happened at the beginning of March when we would already be celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday so we opted to move our black dress up day to March 2nd...and become the Cat in the Hat!  I always have black eyeliner in my drawer {usually whatever's the cheapest at Target} and I used that to draw a nose and whiskers on the kids' faces.  Then they made their own -at family hats and colored bow ties that I taped to their shirts.  Voila!  They also thought it was quite funny when I called them "Jenna in the Hat" or "Isaac in the Hat" all day.

Our principal came and read "Fox in Socks" to us...he was good at those tongue-twisters!!