Art therapist, author and illustrator, Anna Llenas, delivers with this tale, The Color Monster. As the story unfurls, we meet Color Monster. Take a look at a clip of our Kindergartners’ dramatization.
Color monster: (With hands on either side of his face like Munch’s iconic Scream) “OMG, I’m all mixed up! This is like really annoying and uncomfortable!”
Girl: “I can help you Color Monster. Don’t worry. Look, I have my jars and I am going to help you.”
Color Monster: (sighs) “Okay. Thanks”
Girl: “First, we need to sort these colors. We gonna do yellow first cause yellow is happy. (Pretends to pull a yellow string from Color Monster, and places the string in the jar). This is your yellow happiness. Happy is playing and laughing and being happy and dancing okay Color Monster!”
As you can see, Color Monster awakes an anxious mess. His feelings, depicted by various colors, are all jumbled, and he is at a loss to sort them out. In walks the heroine of this tale. With the aid of a few jars, she not only masterfully helps Color Monster to sort his feelings but, in the process, supports him in identifying, describing, and associating said feelings with what might be their physical manifestations. The tale ends on a cliff-hanger of sorts as the now calm and collected Color Monster experiences a new emotion. Readers are left to name and describe this pink feeling.
As we work to maximize our learning time in Kindergarten, I find myself seeking those opportunities that help me to review lessons taught, delve into focus topics and materials, and preview lessons to come. This title does it all. Our primary use for this title was as a mentor text for our list writing unit. In the process of doing that work, we were also able to review retelling familiar stories , color names, counting to 10, giving voice to our emotions, and building respectful and responsible peer relations. We have Color Monster Goes to School on our wish list. we can’t wait to add thus title to our library. Thank you Anna Llenas!
