Inside: little blue and little yellow book review plus 5 book extension ideas.
Title: little blue and little yellow
Author: Leo Lionni
Publishing: HarperCollins, 1995
Suitable for Ages: 4 to 8
Genre: Children’s fiction
Themes: Friendship, Similarities & Differences, Colours
Synopsis (from Amazon): Little blue and little yellow share wonderful adventures. One day, they can’t find one another. When they finally meet, they are overjoyed. They hug until they become green. But where did little blue and little yellow go? Are they lost?
Opening: This is little blue. Here he is at home with papa and mama blue.
Why I Like This Book: I love the simplicity, charm and innocence of this book. Each page has just a few dots, but even though the illustrations are sparse, the book is surprisingly full of character and carries an important message. My class LOVED it when I read it to them this afternoon. They loved how the dots mixed and changed colours and they decided that the blue family and yellow family should just merge and become the green family forever:)
Book Extensions:
1. Have your students retell the story with yellow and blue play dough.
2. Little blue and little yellow are best friends. Have a discussion with your students about friendship and the wonderful ways in which good friends can bring out the best qualities in each other.
3. Give your students a large venn diagram (2 intersecting circles) and have them them use watercolours to paint one circle blue and the other yellow. At the intersection it will be green. These could also be used to jump start the friendship conversation above.
4. Try this beautiful colour changing rose experiment by Homegrown Friends.
5. Explore colour changes with the Rainbow Milk Experiment.
Fill a dish with homogenized milk, add some food colouring, dip a q-tip in liquid soap, then dip the q-tip into the milk.
It’s MAGICAL!
It can be repeated over and over … the milk just keeps moving and swirling. This was a BIG hit with my class today.
Then we found some neon food colouring so of course we had to start all over:)
Check out all my book reviews for kids!
Looking for MORE great book suggestions? Be sure to check out Susanna’s Perfect Picture Book Friday Linky!
I can't believe I've never heard of this one. Thanks for introducing it. And you're right, Scholastic's activites are wonderful!
Even tho' it's an old book and I've been a Leo Lionni fan for years, I also missed this one!
Oh, it looks like you had a BLAST. Thanks for sharing an old title that's new to me, too!!
This does look like a sweet keeper of a book. So does that experiment.❀ TammyForever in First
I think this one is a real evergreen picture book.
Well! What fun! Cute book and fun experiment! I think I could do that paint trick!
I enjoy this book too! That is a fun experiment to go along with it. I like how the colors swirl and spread! So pretty!LoriConversations in Literacy
This looks REALLY fun – and the activity to go along with it brilliant. Thanks for sharing!
Ooooh. . . I love the art project! And what a sweet way to talk about the mixing of colors on the wheel. I don't remember this one, although I recognize the author. Thanks for sharing!!
Great book choice and great activities, Barbara! Thanks so much! I'm a huge Leo Lionni fan. I love Swimmy, when he says, \”I'll be the eye\” 🙂 And I love the one about the mouse who saves up all the colors for winter and is a poet. Thanks for sharing this one!