- “The Colors of Us” poem template
- color
- tone
MA Standards:
Speaking and Listening/SL.PK.MA.1: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners during daily routines and play.
Head Start Outcomes:
Literacy Knowledge/Early Writing: Recognizes that writing is a way of communicating for a variety of purposes, such as giving information, sharing stories, or giving an opinion.
Literacy Knowledge/Print Concepts and Conventions: Understands conventions, such as print moves from left to right and top to bottom of a page.
Language Development/Expressive Language: Engages in communication and conversation with others.
Language Development/Expressive Language: Uses language to express ideas and needs.
Language Development/Expressive Language: Uses increasingly complex and varied vocabulary.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
English Language Arts/Composition 20: Generate questions and gather information to answer their questions in various ways.
Draw and Write Together: The Colors Of Us
© 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); There are many shades of skin color
ELA Focus Skills: Creative Expression, Speaking and Listening, Vocabulary
Tell children you are going to write a poem with them about different skin tone colors.
- Say, Today we explored skin colors in the book The Colors of Us. We learned about many tones of skin color, such as butterscotch, chocolate, cinnamon, cocoa, coffee, and peaches. Let’s write a poem about “the colors of us” in this room!
- Invite children to share the names of skin colors that they created as together you write a class poem called “The Colors of Us.” Provide sentences to begin as below:
- Have children complete the poem by naming other skin tones. Invite them to make up names for new skin tones. Read aloud the verse, tracking the words as you do. Children may want to include pictures to complete their free verse.
Educator Tip: Guided and independent letter, sound, and word practice continues to take place in center activities. It is helpful to set up the literacy center immediately after the direct instruction and repeat instruction before children work in the literacy center identifying letters.
The Colors of Us
We are the colors of chocolate cake and honey gold,
Of cinnamon toast and caramel crunch,
Of peaches and reddish-brown leaves,
Of .