Post by Alexa Rosenbaum, Toneworks intern

It’s finally Friday!!! As we reach the end of January, the days seem to drag on and weeks can sometime feel never ending.  But we made it, so here is a Friday Favorite post about Cat’s Colors by Jane Cabrera, a wonderful book that we just started using in our ECSE classrooms.  I’ve expressed my love of public library book sales in previous posts, and here’s another great sale find that is awesome for working on color identification and matching.  Each page of the book has a different color on it and a short phrase about an object of that color relating to the cat (yarn, rug, grass, sky, etc.) so kids are learning colors as well as connecting them to objects at home or in nature.

Because the pages sometimes have multiple shades of one color, we added additional laminated colored squares to each page so our clients have an easier time identifying them.  We laminated larger squares to match each of the small squares and before we start reading we pass these out to the kids in the group.  The first page of this book asks “What is my favorite color?” and each pages starts with “Is it….?” which is a great cue for kids to look at their color and the one in the book and figure out if it is a match.  We especially like to use matching activities like this to facilitate children taking ownership and saying “I do” or “me” when their color is called.  This activity also allows us to address self-regulation goals as kids have to wait for the page with their color.  Most of the time they are so excited about naming the other colors that they don’t even realize they are waiting!

I’m going to another library sale in a few weeks so watch out for some more awesome book-related posts coming your way in February!