Colors: The Movie!

I’m a bit late in posting this, but I discovered through two different blogs a most amazing website based on colors that helps students build vocabulary, think abstractly, and offers a humorous look the world of color symbolism.

It’s really difficult to explain the website Colors in Motion using words, as it really is a visual experience from start to finish, with animated color figures dancing, leaping, and acting out various scenes in humorous and educationally friendly ways. Each color is a “star” in it’s own short flash movie in which various adjectives, emotions, and words are symbolized by the figures actions. Take for example, green. During green’s movies a little green stick figure plants a seed and waits patiently on a stool while the word patient is displayed in the white background, followed by the seed growing into a tree with the word natural displayed. The rest of the movies are similar with blue (my favorite color) conveying the idea of formality (blue stick figure in a tux) and authority (marching blue police officers). My wife’s personal favorite was the purple figure dressed up in a fairy costume to symbolize the word fantastic.

The educational value doesn’t stop there though. After watching the movies, you can read through the “stars” individual portfolios. As the colored figures all sit in stools like that kind you’d find on a movie set, spotlights highlight each figure so you can read who their best friends are (their complementary color of course), what the positive and negative adjectives and words are associated with them, and how different cultures see each color. For example, yellow’s best buddy is purple, and can convey both feelings of alertness and cowardice. Yellow also represents happiness in Egypt, and the imperial color of the sky in China.

There’s also a “lab” in which younger users can have fun playing with the stick figures by dressing them up, and creating scenes based on certain words or emotions. Each figure can be manipulated like a paper doll, with props and drawings added to the scenes. It’s really quite an entertaining and quite educational website for teachers or art or language arts. But to really understand it, you have to go check out Colors in Motion for yourself.