Chocolate Tile

Sometimes it’s difficult to differentiate between shades and tones of color – what’s the difference between dark brown and very dark brown? Or even medium brown and medium dark brown? Cream and eggshell and off-white? Sky blue and light blue?

With my students, I often give colors names that they understand, names that they’ve seen.

So our two graduating figures in the mural, both of whom are brown, are described as chocolate brown and caramel brown. The colors really do look like those two descriptions, the students understand (and have seen) the difference between the two browns, and it just makes life easier. And, in the real world, paint and carpet and fashion items have names like that, so I hope I’m giving the students skills to understand color in real-life situations.

As we were putting up the heads of the graduates, I asked two students to run inside and look for some of the tiles that had fallen out. “We need maroon for the hat, yellow for the tassel, purple for the lines, and brown for the face,” I said.

Little cutie guy (the one who tells me he believes in magic) asks which brown – I say the chocolate brown – he bops off happily, knowing exactly which color to find. As I cut the tile, bits fall, and I can ask him to hand me the chocolate triangle on the ground, and he knows which one I mean.

Next day, he sees me on the way to the office. “Ms. Schwartz, I ate some of the tile. It didn’t taste very good. Even the chocolate tile.” He grimaces and rubs his stomach, as if it hurts.

He cracks me up, he’s so adorable!