MIXED by Arree Chung
I’ve been using this beautiful book to inspire discussion and creations as I travel from school to school to support ICT-integration. In this simple, yet powerful story, the primary colours began to argue and decide to segregate. Eventually, the colours start to mix and all kinds of beautiful new colours are made as they learn to live in harmony. This is a book that is approachable for a variety of ages and I’ve absolutely loved sharing it with classrooms in my school division. We’ve had some great conversations and created some beautiful pieces of work.
Here’s how I use the book:
First, I show students the jar of assorted markers with some yellow, red and blue markers, plus one green marker. I ask them to look at the jar and share their “I notice” or “I wonder” thoughts. This provocation was shared by the talented Ms. McLauchlan. Check out her picture book provocations on her blog. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Next, I read the story aloud. I asked students to think about the important message or lesson in the story. We stopped to discuss the plot, interesting word choice and the illustrations.
Then we brainstormed a list of possible messages or lessons that we could take from this story. ⠀See some of the beautiful messages from Grades 3 and 4. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Finally, we each created a poster that showcases an important message from the book (created digitally, on paper or with some combination). We were sure to add some beautiful colours to our designs, along with a key message from the book.
Early years students added their posters to their Seesaw journals (or created them there) and recorded their voices to share what we learned from the story.
Middle Years students created designs with Canva.com (one of our fave design tools for students and teachers) and then saved them to use as the wallpaper background for their Chromebook.
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