Colour

Colour, light and Shadow Play

One student noticed a rainbow on the floor at her home. She shared her experience with the class.

The students had a discussion about what they noticed.

  • Teacher “What is it?”
  • Ruby “It’s a rainbow!”
  • Teacher “What is a rainbow?”
  • Ruby “It was on the floor.”
  • Reggie “A rainbow is with a lot of colours.”
  • Ruby “I can see purple and red and orange and yellow.”
  • Reggie “There is red green and yellow.”
  • Teacher “Who has seen a rainbow before? What do you know about rainbows?”
  • Franz “I saw it in Sanya.”
  • Reggie “They come in the morning.”
  • Ruby “When I go to school I see a rainbow.”
  • Franz “The rainbow is coming from the sky. From the sun”
  • Reggie “We need water and sunshine.”
  • Ruby “And we need rainbow play dough.”
  • Teacher “Why did the rainbow go away?”
  • Ruby “Because it’s dark.”
  • Reggie “When something goes over a rainbow, when something goes in front of the rainbow it will go away. It was too dark”
  • Ryan “Because it has been shadowed by Ruby’s body.”
  • Teacher “What is a shadow?”
  • Ryan “The shadow is black.”
  • Tyler “The sun is shining on the shadow.”
  • Lawrence “The sun shines on the people.”
  • Franz “No. The rainbow is coming from the sun. I saw the rainbow when the sun went down.”
  • Amber “The sun shines. It’s very long (destination).”
  • Cornelis “The rainbow only shines out of the sun. When it’s too dark you can’t see the sun and then when it be morning with the sun out with the rainbow there it will be longer.”
  • Teacher “Can we make rainbows?”
  • Cornelis “You need to make it with the play dough. You need to make it with the play dough and roll the clay.”
  • Reggie “We can make a rainbow out of clay.”

We wonder if we can make shadows and rainbows.

The students worked with a teacher to explore colour and light.

  • Teacher “What to you notice about rainbows?”
  • Reggie “They have lots of colours.
  • Cornelis “I can make rainbows.”
  • Franz “I can make.”
  • Teacher “Who knows how real rainbows are made?”
  • Reggie “From rain and sun.”
  • Cornelis “And then when the sun goes on the rainbow it bounces, goes boing, boing, boing.
  • Franz “I can make the sun.”
  • Teacher “We are going to find different ways to make rainbows.”

The students look at the rainbow colours on CD’s. They hold it up to the sun, observe how light plays on its surface and name the different colours.

  • Amber (singing) “It can be rainbow.”

The teacher pours some milk into a tray. The students put droplets of different colours of food dye into the tray of milk. They name the different colours they used. The teacher then includes a few drops of washing liquid. The colours begin to swirl in the milk.

  • Teacher “What is happening to the colours?”
  • Amber and Jasmine “Rainbow!”
  • Reggie “Its turning into a rainbow!”

The group continue to discuss what they have observed.

The teacher invites the students to search for rainbows in other places. They use water guns to create the effect of rain.

We continue to look for rainbows…

SLO’s

  • a sense of wonder and curiosity
  • make observations about locations and patterns in their immediate environment as part of their primary geographical explorations
  • use inquiry to acquire information
  • make statements that reflect their understandings

 

A few months later, the concept of colour came up again during a discussion with the students. Mia drew a rainbow and explained…“Mummy see a rainbow and said ‘Look Mia!’. I look at it all the time and I like it. The rainbow has no eyes, no nose and no mouth. It was very big. It had red, yellow, orange, green, blue…” Mia went on to share how beautiful the rainbow was. 

The artist Emmanuelle Moureaux is also inspired by colour. We explored this further. We watched the video [click on the links to view the videos]Forest of Numbers”. which displays his creation with coloured numbers. 

The display color mixing” by Emmanuelle Moureaux. Here he uses colour motifs.

And the display bunshi”, where he uses branches of different colours to create his display.

While watching the different creations, the students commented…

Reggie “This makes me think of the first ever rainbow I saw.”

Abby “I saw a rainbow in Canada.”

Reggie “Inside water there is a rainbow.”

Mia explained that if she was looking at the display she will have to “…touch it gently because it can fall down.”

Abby “It has 10 colours!”

Emmanuelle Moureaux’s display ‘FURLA‘, which was created with colourful circles and included different letters, captivated the students further. They were excited to find the letters in their names F, R, A, L, U. 

All the children gathered to watch the beautiful artwork. We were inspired by the different creations. We wondered if we can make our own.

Teacher “What shape can we use?”

Reggie “Circles, we can make them with cylinders…I saw people moving…different colours.”

We wonder where this inquiry will lead us…

SLO’s

  • make statements that reflect their understandings
  • listen to others
  • interpret and analyse visuals and multimedia to gain understanding

We decided to create our own piece of art, a mobile. The students began by discussing possible ideas for their decorative structure. They wanted it to be about the things they liked and cherished. We decided that each creation would represent an individual person.

The Brainstorm…

We will continue to include more ideas as our inquiry progresses.

Next the students created individual posters. They explained their choices for the different facets that would be included in their creation. Here are a few.

 

 

The students painted the first letter in their name, which will be the first part of the mobile. 

The students used beads and pipe-cleaners to make a flash card. It would represent their age. 

The Display