Creating Colors

Creating Colors and other books in the “Full STEAM Ahead!” series present engaging examples of the connections between Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, and Math.

Bright colourful photos and illustrations show people mixing paints, using colours in needlework, basket weaving, pottery and murals. The explanation and illustration of the colour wheel should help young students understand the warm and cool colours.

There are few people in the photos in Creating Colors so there is less diversity than in the other titles, but the young man on the title page is painting from his wheelchair.

Words in bold throughout the book are defined in “Words to Know” at the end of the book. Each word in the list is also identified as a noun or a verb or an adjective. An explanation of the parts of speech is included on the same page. A brief Index is also included. Unfortunately, the Crabtree Plus digital link to the Student Discovery Lab at www.crabtreeplus.com/fullsteamahead
does not seem to be working yet so I’m not able to include this feature in my review.

Each book includes “STEAM Notes for Educators” on the last page of the book. The notes outline one activity intended to guide teachers and parents/caregivers to extend the ideas in the book. The activity in Creating Colors helps readers create a colour wheel and mix colours. An extension suggests that students “paint a piece of art using their color and two other warm/cool colors, to create a painting that invites a feeling”.

Creating Colors is part of a subgroup of books, “Arts in Action” in the “Full STEAM Ahead!” series. The other three titles in “Arts in Action” are Making Art from Anything, How Do Artists Tell Stories?”, and Artists Use Tools. All of the books in the series are well-suited to primary students although some are better than others at making connections between the STEAM disciplines.