Color, Critical Thinking, and Camouflage

It's hard to find books with science content that are appropriate for primary grade students, but George Shannon has authored one that is perfect. White is for Blueberry focuses on colors, but they are not presented in typical fashion. Shannon pushes the reader's thinking by highlighting different aspects of the identified object, as exemplified by the rest of the title sentence, "...when the berry is still too young to pick." Young children will quickly engage in the book as a guessing game, which, with guidance from the teacher, presents multiple opportunities to hypothesize and draw conclusions. And, the clever ending provides a jumping-off point for a discussion of perspective.

And, I couldn't let this go without pointing out the obvious language arts connection; the simple text  provides a great model for writing informational text! Even kindergarteners could complete a sentence frame based on the book:  (Color) is for (object) when...


If you decide to follow a color theme, it would be easy to continue with Melissa Stewart's  A Rainbow of Animals series. Six different books, Why are Animals (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, or Purple) highlight how and animals use their colors. The easy text and vivid photographs make these books fast favorites among the younger crowd, as well. Plus, Melissa offers a reader's theater script and curriculum guide on her Science Clubhouse website.

 

It would also be quite easy to use these books to introduce camouflage, and though it isn't quite as stunning as some of the other books we've highlighted here, Animals in Camouflage, by Phyllis Limbacher Tildes, is another great book. This book, too, presents the information in kind of a guessing game format. Each animal description is told in rhyming verse, and ends with the question, "What am I?" Upon turning the page, the reader gets the answer as well as more details about the animal. However, my favorite part (as usual) comes at the end of the book when Tildes provides more detailed descriptions of types of camouflage (blending, color change, disguise, and pattern), identifies the type used by each animal presented in the book, and adds even more information about the animals in an additional paragraph.This book is perfect for taking the concept of color to a higher level.