Book Club: Black Bird Yellow Sun – Learning Colors

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Teaching colors to children opens up the door to so many educational opportunities! As soon as they can begin distinguishing between colors using proper words, then they have another way to explain the environment around them. They can answer questions as to which t-shirt they wish to wear tomorrow or what color crayon they would like to use next.

Finding books to teach and reinforce colors can be easy but what activities can you do with them? Steve Light's Black Bird Yellow Sun is a lovely board book with bright colors and clear, large text to tell the story. (It really isn't a story. Each set of pages offers text to accompany the color. For example, "Black Bird Purple Grapes".)

Introducing Colors and Vocabulary

• Black
• Yellow
• Orange 
• Purple
• Green
• Red
• Gray
• Pink
• Blue 

• Bird
• Sun
• Leaves
• Grapes
• Grass
• Snake
• Rocks
• Flowers

I love teaching my children vocabulary using index cards, our whiteboard, writing the words with chalk outside, or even writing the words in different colors over and over. 

 

Crafts 

This book just screams for one to break out the paints! The illustrations were made by printing cardboard shapes with ink according to the book. I think children could have so much fun imitating the technique also using stamps of various materials. 

Be sure to ask your child to find the worm on each set of pages! Along with the black bird, the worm is there is help your child identify colors.

I decided to go a different route for a craft in our homeschool for this book. I used clipart from Canva as the basis for the craft. After printing out the bird, I let our children let their creativity shine.

Materials

• White paper
• Large construction paper or scrapbook paper 
• Scissors
• Glue 
• Paint
• Paintbrushes
• Dried beans 
• Crayons or markers 

Steps

1. Find a picture or photograph of a black bird or have your children draw a picture of a black bird.

2. Ask your children to decide what images from the story they would like to include in their picture. Our son wanted to include the red snake and our daughter wanted to include the yellow sun and the purple grapes.

3. Glue on the dried beans to create the shapes desired. Attach the black bird onto your picture.

4. After the glue has dried, your children can paint the beans. As long as your children gently paint the beans, then they won't fall off too easily.

5. After the paint is dried, display your children's artwork.

More Ideas

If your children enjoy reading and doing arts and crafts, please check out some of my other Book Club blog posts. From a book about a Dragon Doctor to Snowmen who play at night, I share fun ideas paired with children's books on a regular basis here at A Mom's Quest to Teach.