The Day the Crayons Quit

Have you seen this adorable book?  I was browsing the bookstore, and fell in love with it, and promptly purchased it as a gift for the gal who replaced me when I retired a year ago.  The book consists of letters a boy has found in his crayon box (instead of the crayons), written in crayon, actually written BY the crayons themselves!  Each letter is written in a different color, and that color complains about one thing or another - you use me too much, you don't use me enough, I only get used for outlines....and so on.  Really sweet!  In the end, the boy's solution is to color a spectacular picture, bright and colorful, using every crayon in the box.  

I love this book on so many levels.  I love it because it encourages creative use of color.  I love it because my students always knew how I felt about complaining. My #1 rule has always been No Whining!!  (I wrote this rule in a couple of prior posts but I'm writing this post on my iPad, which I don't normally do, and the blogger app is terrible and won't let me put in the links for you. If you want to find those posts, use my labels to the right and click on 'art room rules'.) Anyhow - also, I love the book because it can be used to talk about fairness and equality.  And I love it because it is simply so much fun.