color theories continued

As we have been recording many of the conversations and talk surrounding our explorations of color I have been surprised to hear some of the ideas, feelings and theories surrounding color. Here are some photos and bits of conversation from the week. I know that many Reggio schools study color and I'm definitely curious to hear about the direction teachers and children have taken in studying color, so please share!

This first conversation has an interesting conversation about white/light and black/dark. I'm not sure where we will go with this. But the conversation between K and Mrs. Lee is interesting and I think we will pursue this thread of thought.



K: We need a lot of white
Mrs. Lee: Why do you need so much white?
K: So we can make different colors. White is the most beautiful
Mrs. Lee: Why do you think white is the most beautiful?
K: Because white is the most special because there is a lot of light.
Mrs. Lee: So you think white is a light color and helps us see other colors. That’s interesting.
Mrs. Lee: How about black, can we use black to mix and make different colors?
K: No.
Mrs. Lee: No, why not?
K: Because black is not special.
A: black is special. Because black has so many beautiful mixing colors.


On another day, I began to ask children questions to deepen their thinking about colors but as you can see they were more focused exploring and announcing their discoveries. It's important to know when to push and when to sit back and listen. I think I got the hint pretty quickly to be quiet here.


K: Look I made dark blue. First you need yellow and then red and then blue. You need a lot of blue.
V: I mixed yellow and blue.
C: I made three kinds of different green
Ms. Merril: Can you tell me about the three kinds of green?
C: First I made dark green.
P: I made the dark purple, dark purple, dark.
K: I made light orange and dark orange
C: I made four different kind of orange
V: I made four different kind of orange but Kellie how did you make light green?
K: Umm all of the colors
V: You need all of the colors?
V: Okay, got light green
C: I made light green. I made very dark green.
C: I made a rainbow yogurt. You can see colors underneath because I add so much water
Ms. Merril: I see the colors underneath too
C: And it’s rainbow over here

One morning the conversation focused on how many colors we thought there were in the world. The numbers ranged from 6 to 108. That day children explored mixing colors to create as many color variations as they could. We counted 28 when all was said and done. I'm thinking next week I will bring in the BIG Crayola pack so we can read and see all of the color variations and compare with our findings.





and here is a photo of our new light adorned light center! I couldn't resist posting because I love the lights so much, they make the room feel very cozy. Thank you to a local hardware store who donated quite a bit to us as they were closing down the store.