Connecting With Literature: Colors Part Four
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
This is a pretty simple, and fun, project that connects to another wonderful children's book: Harold and the Purple Crayon. My preschoolers enjoyed this connection to literature during our Purple Day whole-group project time.
For this Connection to Literature I was hoping to give kids a chance to draw while engaging their whole body! We had to reach up high, and crouch down low, to get to all the areas of our "page". Just like Harold our paper was HUGE! They thought this was fun, and they were excited to try to create a purple picture like Harold did in the story. On top of that, they thought the book was very entertaining!
For this Connection to Literature I was hoping to give kids a chance to draw while engaging their whole body! We had to reach up high, and crouch down low, to get to all the areas of our "page". Just like Harold our paper was HUGE! They thought this was fun, and they were excited to try to create a purple picture like Harold did in the story. On top of that, they thought the book was very entertaining!
Our Process
I gave all the kids a large piece of paper with this little guy in the bottom corner (if you haven't read the book, this is Harold...from the story!). I just hand drew him and colored his crayon purple.
We read the book all together (and they LOVED the story). After finishing we talked about all of the different things Harold decided to draw and create in the story. We also looked at the cover and first few pages, where there is more lines than pictures "of" things.
We taped the papers up around the school. This was fun for the kids! I made sure to put them up so that they would have to stretch their arms up high, but also had enough length to get down low. This was full-body coloring!
What is extra special about connecting to books is the ease of getting kids to work on pre-writing skills. At preschool I work a lot on creative story-telling (my experience as a Kindergarten and first grade teacher made me aware that kids have a hard time "coming up" with stories to write). I try to encourage my preschoolers to be creative, and to tell stories (both imaginative, and things that actually happened to them). While they made these pictures I heard them telling a story about what was going on. Both out-loud to themselves and to friends/me. The picture became a story just like Harold and the Purple Crayon. I couldn't have been happier with the activity, and the kids were super engaged!