Although I love stories that can be the foundation for fun, exciting activities, sometime we as teachers just need a book to work on concepts. The book, The Big Red Ball and the Little White Kitten, by Christopher Franceschelli is a great book for teaching colors and big/little. It is also great for students with Cortical Visual Impairment. The colors are bright and simple. The storybox items are easily found around your school or house. This book is also easy to texture.
Materials
The Big Red Ball and the Little White Kitten
Storybox items:
- 5 balls of yarn: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple
- White Kitten
- Gray and White Kitten
- Orange Goldfish
- Yellow Chick
- Green Frog (I used a realistic toy)
- Blue Butterfly
- Purple Snail- I’ll be honest; I haven’t found a purple snail
Procedure
- Show the students the various objects and talk about what color they are.
- Read the story aloud and pass around the items of each color as they appear in the story.
- Ask the children to find the one that is a certain color (i.e. a red ball of yarn when on that page)
- Reinforce the concept of colors throughout the day — what color clothes do the children have on? What color are the materials? toys?
Variations
- Reinforce the concept of colors throughout the day — what color clothes do the children have on? What color are the materials? toys?
- Go on a walk around the classroom or school looking for named colors.
- Play “I Spy” (“I spy with my little eye… something YELLOW” and the everyone tries to guess which yellow thing in the room it is.)
