The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers and published by HarperCollins is a fantastic book. I bought it before I even had my son. I spotted it in Waterstones bookshop and I fell in love with it. If I bought one book I got another one half price so I also bought The Day the Crayons Came Home as well and I will do a post on that at some point too. It is about a little boy called Duncan who goes to use his crayons but finds letters instead telling him why they have all quit. It is so well thought out, very colourful and a story that we can all relate to.
Activities
Colour hunt out and about
Crayon and colour hunt in the garden
Colour car track painting
Crushed chalk potion making
Jelly colour mixing
Colourful fruit salad
One colour meal shopping trip
Colourful pasta
Coloured layered desserts
Wear one colour for the day
Colouring pages (see colouring page tab)
Write a letter from one of their own crayons
Choose a toy/household item to quit
Crayon personalities
Indoor colour scavenger hunt
I-spy colour
Discussion: favourite colours, stereotypes and colour of emotions
Outdoor
The story is all about colours so a nice easy activity is to encourage your child/children to pick 5 colours and then go and find something outside that will match their colours. These could be written down or the crayons can also go on the walk to remind them what the colours are that were chosen. The coloured items can just be pointed out that they spot or they can write or draw them (add extra time on your outing if you choose the second option). If you want an outdoor activity at home you could hide the crayons in the garden and send your child/children out to find them. This activity can be extended by encouraging them to find something in the garden the same colour as the crayons they find (I think the person that finds the green crayon will find this the easiest). For a more arty outside activity you could squeeze some squeezy paint mixed with washing up liquid (this makes it a lot easer to clean up) on to some big paper and your child/children can make tracks with toy cars. If it is a bit windy just put a shoe on each corner of the paper or a big stone to stop it blowing away. Younger children especially enjoy this activity but older children could enjoy it too and maybe draw letters, shapes or words instead of just making tracks. Another fun activity if your child/children like making potions, then you could get some cheap chalks and crush them and then they can make colourful potions if they add a bit of water. This will help them learn what colours are made when they mix different colours together.
Food/Cooking
There are some exciting colourful food activities that can go along with this book. The first is jelly colour mixing. If you make up a red, yellow and blue jelly (I have checked and it does exist) in separate jugs then your child/children can mix the different colours together and make different colours of jelly. There are some new sparkly jellies out at the moment that I keep meaning to try. For a healthy option you could make a fruit salad with your child/children. Try and get as many different coloured fruits as you can and then they can practice peeling and chopping or for very young children, they can help by putting the fruit in the bowl. On a shopping trip you could give your child/children a colour and they need to find items to make a meal only using the colour you have given them. Don't forget to share their colourful meal creations in the forum. I would love to see what they came up with. For a savoury dish you could make colourful pasta with your child/children. If you cook the spaghetti/pasta like you normally do. Then put a bit of warm water and some drops of food colouring in a food bag with a zip lock and add the pasta. Zip it and get your child to shake it up a bit and then rinse and drain and you will have coloured pasta. Each colour you choose to do will need a different bag. You will have a very colourful pasta meal. There are also different coloured layered deserts you could do like angel delight/instant whip, a rainbow smoothie with different fruits or a rainbow ice lolly.
Indoor
As the story is all about colours the first indoor activity is a nice easy one (if they choose a colour of clothes that they own). Your child/children can choose a colour for the day and they need to dress in their chosen colour. This will encourage their independence and also teach them the different items they need when getting dressed. Younger children love colouring so you can head over to the blogs colouring page and print off some pictures to colour, there is one for each book featured on the blog. Older children could choose one of their crayons and write a letter about what the crayon would say to them. They could also choose one of their toys or a household item to quit just like the crayons did. What would happen? They could give each of their crayons a different personality and tell you why they chose that particular personality. Then you could discuss what colour each family member's personality is and why. A fun activity that younger and older children could do is an indoor colour scavenger hunt. Give each child a different colour and they need to find something in the house that matches their colour. Older children could find as many items of that colour as they can in a particular room and write them down and younger children could just point them out or collect them. Finally, I-spy using colour is a fun game to play and young children can join in with looking for the coloured object. While doing these activities some discussions that you can have can be about favourite colours, colour stereotypes (pink for a girl and blue for a boy etc.) or if emotions have colours and what would they be.
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