Paint and Pages

Last week I introduced the timeless classic “Harold and the Purple Crayon” by Crockett Johnson. I loved this book as a child and was delighted to share it with my students.

I did make one change while reading. Instead of “police man” I said, “police officer”. A male colleague and I had an excellent discussion about the importance of being inclusive with our word choice. The change starts with us and I want every boy and girl in my classroom to know they can grow up to become a police officer.

After reading, we discussed all the things Harold drew. Then, I put large sheets of white paper on our tables with purple markers. Students enjoyed drawing some of the things Harold drew and adding some new drawings of their own.

In addition to drawing with a purple marker, students also had the opportunity to finger paint with blue and red. A student asked, “Shouldn’t we use purple like Harold?” I just smiled and said, “Maybe!” You can imagine their delight when they discovered that mixing red and blue makes purple.

I have a student who does not like to touch finger paint. I usually give him a brush. Today, I asked another student if he would like to try a brush too. It was fun watching the pair of them enjoy brush-painting together.

Fingerprinting is so much fun as it’s all about the process! Students are engaged and immersed in playing with paint. It doesn’t really matter what the finished product looks like, it matters that they are exploring paint and color.

We had some leftover paint so a few students made second and third finger painting masterpieces. We then used scissors to cut these into items from the story. A few students really enjoyed this and added these shapes to our mural.

I love my classroom water table that I first learned about through Iowa’s “Waterworks” STEM training. I was sad to have to leave my water table in my Iowa classroom, fortunately, many of the items were inexpensive to replace. Each day I fill the water table and make it a different color. Students enjoy coming into the classroom and seeing what color I made the water table each day. Of course, today it was purple!

We also sang a song, “Purple Stew!” When I was a member of Camp Adventure, there was a skit that went with this song. I have turned that skit into a story and song always tell my students. They love it! I love it as well.

When we finished our mural and our finger paintings were dry, I hung them in the hallway for the community to enjoy. I also made a poster showing the standards we met through this project.

What a joyous purple time! We ended our day watching the cartoon version of the story. It was a delight!