Color Week
Alignments to Content Standards:
K.CC.B
Task
This game can be set up two ways.
Version 1
Set up one week as “color week” and send home a notice to parents laying out each color day. Example:
- Monday: Red
- Tuesday: Blue
- Wednesday: Yellow
- Thursday: Green
- Friday: Purple
On that week students can wear the color of the day each day to be counted. Usually on Monday only a few students wear the color and by Friday most of the class is wearing the dayʼs color.
Record the studentsʼ data using a chart like this:
Each morning ask the students wearing the day's color to come to the front of the room. Count how many students are wearing that color and record on a chart. This option will yield higher numbers. Depending on the size of your class the numbers may exceed 20. If that is the case, the teacher can split the class into two teams or do version 2 of the game.
Version 2
Each day the class will fill in the following chart. Do not have students dress in any special way. This will keep the numbers smaller. For example, in a class of 28 students typically no more than 10 students will be wearing any particular color.
IM Commentary
The purpose of this task is to help students understand the connection between counting and cardinality. Thus, oral counting and recording the number in digit form are the most important aspects of this activity. However, teachers can extend this by making a bar graph about how many students are wearing the color each day.
Five-year-olds need to count things that relate to them. This activity builds on their need to be included or see the relevance of their counting.
Solution
There are many solutions possible. Any accurate counting and recording of student data is a correct solution.
Color Week
This game can be set up two ways.
Version 1
Set up one week as “color week” and send home a notice to parents laying out each color day. Example:
- Monday: Red
- Tuesday: Blue
- Wednesday: Yellow
- Thursday: Green
- Friday: Purple
On that week students can wear the color of the day each day to be counted. Usually on Monday only a few students wear the color and by Friday most of the class is wearing the dayʼs color.
Record the studentsʼ data using a chart like this:
Each morning ask the students wearing the day's color to come to the front of the room. Count how many students are wearing that color and record on a chart. This option will yield higher numbers. Depending on the size of your class the numbers may exceed 20. If that is the case, the teacher can split the class into two teams or do version 2 of the game.
Version 2
Each day the class will fill in the following chart. Do not have students dress in any special way. This will keep the numbers smaller. For example, in a class of 28 students typically no more than 10 students will be wearing any particular color.