Take Away Teaching Ideas #36: Sky Colour

Sky Colour

Marisol loves to paint. She was excited to help make a mural for the school library. But hold on – how can Marisol make a sky without blue paint?

Draw three events from the story and retell to a partner.
Make connections from text to text. Compare this text to Ish written by Peter H Reynolds.
Read the story to the readers without showing the pictures. They visualise and draw the images described in the text.
Marisol painted posters to share the ideas she believed in. Read factual texts to research your poster for a cause.
Select a page from the story to practise fluent reading. I suggest:
- At school, Marisol was famous for her creative clothes, her box of sort materials and her belief that everybody was an artist.

Role play the last page of the book. The students are looking at the mural. What could they be saying to each other?
Discuss: What is the important idea in this story? What is your evidence?
View and describe the famous art work by Van Gogh – Starry Night.

The character Marisol has 3 syllables in her name. How many syllables are in your name? How many words on our word wall that have three syllables?
Collect the nouns, verbs, and adjectives from the story. Record them in a three-column table.

Write a description of the mural.
Complete a daily sky journal. The writers record their daily observations.
Marisol created a poster for a cause. The writers create their own posters.
Explore an art work and write a description.
Use photos of colour in nature as a prompt to generate and collect writing ideas.
Explore colourful fonts when you publish.

‘What shapes appear in the sky?’
‘What time does day turn into night?
What patterns appear in the book?’
Select several pages of the book and ask ‘What time of the day is it? How do you know?’
There are jars of paint in the story. Investigate the capacity of different jars. ‘How much does the jar hold? How do you know?’
Horizon is a word that features in the book. ‘What is the related math term?’

Create clouds in a cup by setting white marshmallows in blue jelly.
Paint an image of the sky with:
- cotton balls
- sponges
- cotton buds
- nature brushes
- rollers
Recreate the mural as a collaborative art project. Each learner creates a fish. The learners work together to paint the sky without blue paint.
View the sky and investigate the shapes, objects, and images you can see in the clouds.
Host a weeklong series of lessons focusing on the ‘Colour of the Day’.
Photocopy a page from the text and add colour using water colour pencils.
Learn more about Peter and his books at his website

Have an awesome day!

Andrea