Toddlers: Colors

For more information on how I plan and prepare my toddler storytimes, check out this introduction post. And for a complete list of the repeating extension activities, visit this post. I starred the materials used in the plan; multiple stars indicate use for more than one session.

The Plan

Books

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr.**
Freight Train by Donald Crews
Meeow and the Blue Table by Sebastien Braun*
Monsters Love Colors by Mike Austin*

Early Literacy Tip

Children love to imitate their parents so you are the very best model for storytime participation!

Theme Extension Activities

Flannelboard: Dog’s Colorful Day*

Flannelboard: Maisy Mouse**

Folder Story: Scat the Cat**

Action Song: Driving Round In My Red Car*
Driving round in my little red car
Driving round in my little red car
Driving round in my little red car
Zoom zoom zoom zoom zoom
(Go through red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple)
Credit: Childhood

Action Song: Rainbow Dancers*
Rainbow dancers let’s get ready
Hold your scarves nice and steady.
You’ll hear the colors of the rainbow.
Listen for your time to go.
Shake red…
Shake orange…
Shake yellow…
Shake green…
Shake blue…
Shake purple…
Red scarves turn around,
Orange scarves up and down.
Yellow scarves reach up high,
Green scarves fly, fly, fly.
Blue scarves tickle your nose,
Purple scarves touch your toes.
Everybody dance around,
Swirl your scarves up and down.
Shake purple…
Shake blue…
Shake green…
Shake yellow…
Shake orange…
Shake red…
Rainbow dancers dance around,
Scarves swirl up and down.
Our colorful dance is at an end.
Thank you, thank you, all my friends.
Credit: Storytime Fun

Repeating Extension Activities

• Head, Shoulders, Knees, & Toes*
• Open, Shut Them**
• Tick, Tock*
• Two Little Blackbirds**

How It Went

Colors is a great theme for toddlers — they get to hear a lot of wonderful vocabulary and color identification is a great skill to master before school. Tuesday’s favorite book was “Monsters Love Colors” and it’s a great book to incorporate movement during. Thursday’s favorite book was definitely “Brown Bear” — they are on the younger side of toddlerhood and definitely appreciated a book they were more familiar with. For both groups, Scat the Cat is a magical cat and I love doing that rhyme with kids.