Yoli took the children through the color yellow kinesthetically: “Close your eyes. What do the colors red, orange, pink and yellow remind you of? Take it in with your brain cells and let it touch your heart.”
The week before Spring Break, Sam and the West Wing teachers pulled the color yellow from the warm color exploration for deeper investigation. Asking investigative questions, Sam elicited associations from the children to invite rich expressions.
David: “Sun shines on people at wake up time so they can play.”
Theo: “I don’t like the sun because it gets in my eyes.”
Sasha F.: “Yellow makes me feel happy because it’s so bright.”
Ella: “Sunflowers are yellow too! Sunflowers smell like the beautiful sun.”
At the communication center Charlie S. created a representation of the effects of the sun. He said he was making knives for rays.
Charlie S.: “Ya, the sun is round and it’s hot, too. One day I went to the beach and it was burning me.”
After reflecting as a group of teachers, we see the benefit of the total immersion in this color exploration and its effect on expression. Charlie S. exhibits a poetic application of his associations with ‘yellow’ through materials – yellow tape ‘knives’ represent the sharp pain of a remembered sunburn.