The Red-Pink Dilemma

Before I offer scarves to any of the preschoolers, or even the older ones who I do these classes with, I like to read the story Color Dance by Ann Jonas.  Students preschool through kindergarten are captivated when I read this. When the story is over, I tell them that we will do our own color dance.

I pass out the scarves and regardless of what age I am working with, they get excited. To lead up to our color dance party, I play I Have a Little Scarf from Moving with Mozart by Georgian Stewart - a great guided music experience I recommend for any early learning classroom. I begin with this track because it introduces students to the different ways they can move with their scarf - like a ship sailing by, an enchanted curtain, leaves falling from a tree. The favorite is the shooting star, when we throw our scarves up in the air and try to catch them when they fall.

After our scarf exploration, it is time for the scarf dance party where students get to dance however they want with their scarves. The little ones love when I come-up to them during the dance party and cover them with a scarf, or let a scarf fall on them. The giggles abound!

But here is the problem I have with the book Color Dance. The entire thing is based on the primary colors and how they mix together to make new colors, but all the reds are pink! Before I read the first word of the story - which is the word red next to a girl dancing with a large scarf of the same color -  I ask the children, what color is this?

They all have the same answer, Pink! 

Then I show them real red in the form of a felt square, to make up for the red missing in the publication. The publishers of this book really messed up here, didn't they read what they were printing? Now when I read this book, I show all the colors with matching felt squares. I am thinking about painting over all the pink scarves that are supposed to be red with red paint so I don't have to keep going through this. Though despite this major glaring flaw, I continue to use the book because it really is a great a book for a creative movement class.  It would be great however to see this book reprinted so that the red actually looks red.