One

by Kathryn Otoshi

Ages: 4 - 8

Discuss 

• How does it feel to be blue? Have you ever felt like blue?
• How does it feel to be red? Have you ever felt red?
• Why did red act that way towards blue?
• Why didn't the other colors say something to red? Have you ever felt like the other colors?
• What was different about one? How did one help all the other colors?  Have you ever been like one?  How can you be like one?
• What does it mean to count?

Activities

• First Reading: In the story, every time Red says something mean and no one speaks up, he gets…bigger…and bigger…and Bigger… During the first reading, every time Red says or does something mean, you will squeeze one drop of red food coloring into a clear glass of water. Example: Red tells blue, “Red is hot. Blue is not.” The students will notice that the water appears redder with each added drop of food coloring. Second Reading: This time, you will add an extra step to the experiment using a second glass of water. Again, every time Red says something mean, you will squeeze one drop of red food coloring into the second glass of water. This time when One and the other colors stand up to Red you will drop different colors of food coloring (blue, green, yellow) into the glass covering up the red. Before One showed up, what could the colors have said to Red? As each student shares an idea, he or she drops their color of choice (except for red) into the glass. Compare both glasses of water. What is different about the second glass? The first glass is bright red. The second glass is a mixture of all the colors resulting in red being less dominant. When we stand up for ourselves and others we take away the bully’s power!  

• Have the child write the numbers with watercolor on a sheet of paper.  Use the color that corresponds to the number in the book.  Next to the numbers, write down what character trait that number represents.  For example: 4 is Regal
• Write down the numbers 1 - 7 randomly on a piece of paper (space them out a bit).  Have the child use a watercolor to make the correct amount of dots for each number.  Use the color that corresponds to the number in the book.  For example: Next to the number 3,  the child would make three green dots.
• Write the numbers 1 - 7 on the left hand side of a page, in order, from top to bottom.  In the center of the page, have the child paint a large dot representing each color in the book.  Ask them to draw a line from the correct color to its corresponding number in the book.
• Have the child colors 5 small circles with the watercolor (purple, orange, green, yellow, blue).  Then have them make a really large red circle.  Follow this with making a large number 1 in gray.  Talk about why the red is big and why the colors feel small and how gray is different/standing out.

*The discussion questions and the first activity listed were taken from this website.

Here are some more links with additional questions and activities:

More Questions
The One
Inferences/Character Traits
Thought Bubbles