Identify Synonyms for the Basic Color Words

Consider teaching students that strong word choice is like selecting just the right shade of a word. Compare general words to 8-box crayon words and more specific words to 24- or 64-box crayon words. We want writers to stop using blue when they know midnight, turquoise, and baby blue.

To help foster this idea, Wilbur Wright Elementary teacher Clara Green (New Castle, IN) created a class color thesaurus for her writers. She banished the basic colors from their writers’ vocabulary. No longer could students refer to blue skies, or green grass, or red lipstick. She had them identifying precisely the color they wanted by using her crayon thesaurus.