- blue
- brown
- color
- dark
- darker
- darkest
- green
- light
- lighter
- lightest
- red
- shade
MA Standards:
Speaking and Listening/SL.PK.MA.1: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners during daily routines and play.
Language/L.PK.MA.4: Ask and answer questions about the meanings of new words and phrases introduced through books, activities, and play.
Language/L.PK.MA.5.c: Apply words learned in classroom activities to real-life examples (e.g., name places in school that are fun, quiet, or noisy).
Language/L.PK.MA.5.a: Demonstrate understanding of concepts by sorting common objects into categories (e.g., sort objects by color, shape, or texture).
MA Draft STE Standards:
Physical Sciences: Matter and Its Interactions: Structure and Properties of Matter/PS1.A: Describe, compare, sort and classify objects based on observable physical characteristics, uses, and whether it is manufactured as part of their classroom play and investigations of the natural and human-made world.
Head Start Outcomes:
Language Development/
Expressive Language: Engages in communication and conversation with others.
Language Development/
Expressive Language: Uses increasingly complex and varied vocabulary.
Logic and Reasoning/Reasoning and Problem Solving: Classifies, compares, and contrasts objects, events, and experiences.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
English Language Arts/Language 2: Participate actively in discussions, listen to the ideas of others, and ask and answer relevant questions.
English Language Arts/Language 4: Engage in play experiences that involve naming and sorting common words into various classifications using general and specific language
Explore Together (indoors): More Shades and Colors
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
STEM Key Concepts: There are many different colors; A color can have many different shades (from very light to very dark)
ELA Focus Skills: Color Recognition, Vocabulary, Listening and Speaking, Follow Directions
Help children gain appreciation for the many shades of color around them. Go for an indoor color walk and play a color game. Walk around the room and any adjoining areas with the children.
- From time to time say, Touch something <red>. Now touch something <green>.
- Hold up a particular object, such as a <blue> crayon, and say, Touch something that is a darker shade of <blue>.
- Have children find and describe three objects of a specific color. Demonstrate with three <brown> objects. Hold them up and say, I found an <brown> ball, an <brown> fruit, and an <brown> mitten. I have three <brown> things.
Have children work in pairs. Encourage them to use descriptive vocabulary such as light, lighter, lightest and dark, darker, darkest, and complete sentences. Make sure every child has a chance to search for items.