Comments on: There are three primary colors!

There are three primary colors!

Slap*Happy — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:45:06 -0800

The band "OK Go" are using their signature blend of pleasant indie pop and quirky, home-grown videos to teach kids about primary colors in a new short for Sesame Street. - SLYT

By: Nomyte

Nomyte — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:57:58 -0800

I don't understand. How exactly do blue and red go about making purple together?

By: Slap*Happy

Slap*Happy — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:59:30 -0800

Well, when two primary colors love each other very much, they...

By: DU

DU — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:01:37 -0800

Additively

By: I've wasted my life

I've wasted my life — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:11:37 -0800

Maybe they've been considering a career trajectory similar to TMBG.

By: looli

looli — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:11:54 -0800

OK GO and Sesame Street are pretty much a match made in heaven. But, probably it's time to teach kids that the primary colours are red, green and blue. Then Sesame Street can get into hexadecimal. "Sesame Street was brought to you by the letter R and the number E3170D."

By: not that girl

not that girl — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:15:15 -0800

Oh, that was very cute.

By: Nomyte

Nomyte — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:17:11 -0800

"Sesame Street was brought to you by the letter R and the number E3170D." Correction: the letter 82.

By: maudlin

maudlin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:19:18 -0800

And then the playgrounds full of kids who grok RGB break out in squabbles over the HSL and HSV models. ARE YOU HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU STARTED NOW, OK GO? ARE YOU? (Oh, for the days when we taught kids Munsell and they liked it.)

By: jacquilynne

jacquilynne — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:27:08 -0800

I've never really understood why teaching kids primary and secondary colors was necessary, or was something we start so early. The whole idea that red and yellow make orange still very slightly blows my mind, and yet it was something they seemed compelled to teach me in kindergarten, as if it was very, very important that I know it.

By: hippybear

hippybear — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:44:19 -0800

I've never really understood why teaching kids primary and secondary colors was necessary I think it's an early science thing which can be easily demonstrated in the classroom with basic materials. Get some tempera paints, have the kids mix on their own, and voila, they've come to understand something very basic about light and color. It's rarely taught at an early age with any real explanation of how or why it works, and the difference between reflective color mixing and radiant color mixing is pretty much left out. But it is something that you can teach young children which is a basic science concept that they can prove on their own, and in that way it's a very useful thing to teach.

By: Mizu

Mizu — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:03:35 -0800

Learning color mixing for me was about having power, actually. I was the kid who was constantly coloring and drawing and painting so I always was fighting with myself, having an idea in my head that I couldn't put onto paper if I felt like I didn't have the right materials to achieve it. As soon as I was shown how to make colors from other colors, my available materials expanded almost magically. Suddenly all I needed was 5 colors and I could make nearly everything. Red and white makes pink! Blue and black makes navy! It made me so incredibly happy that I suddenly had the agency to depict what I wanted with a small amount of starting tools. Of course, I got annoyed with murky greens and dark purples and bad skin tones pretty fast so things expanded as I got older and made less of a mess, but I still remember that rush of making the sunset orange and pink and the extreme sense of pride I had in my 3 year old self.

By: maryr

maryr — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:05:17 -0800

Very much old-school Sesame Street feel to it. Very nice.

By: spbmp

spbmp — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:30:04 -0800

I think it's an early science thing which can be easily demonstrated in the classroom with basic materials Excellent point, but I had to add... It's rarely taught at an early age with any real explanation of how or why it works till now! gonna show this to my kiddo now!

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:43:51 -0800

> I've never really understood why teaching kids primary and secondary colors was necessary, or was something we start so early. I can recall that learning about primary color blending taught me that elements of my experience could be deconstructed, and that everything really wasn't what it seemed (in my five-year old way of thinking of that anyway). I remember finding joy in seeing that the world was like this giant playset that had smaller parts you could take apart.

By: Curious Artificer

Curious Artificer — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:44:58 -0800

A new OK GO video combined with Sesame Street is coming very close to MetaFilter terminal velocity. If only Simon's Cat had been in it, we might have reached singularity.

By: EmpressCallipygos

EmpressCallipygos — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:46:31 -0800

If you think about it, it's almost weird that this hasn't happened sooner.

By: Metro Gnome

Metro Gnome — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:47:17 -0800

Great, now my kid's paint is all over my treadmill.

By: oddman

oddman — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:52:31 -0800

But they don't make pink. hah.

By: Samizdata

Samizdata — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:25:56 -0800

Imma going to say it. I like OK Go. There.

By: maryr

maryr — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:13:23 -0800

A new OK GO video combined with Sesame Street is coming very close to MetaFilter terminal velocity. If only Simon's Cat had been in it, we might have reached singularity. Any cat, really. As long as there's a picture.

By: Effigy2000

Effigy2000 — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:42:46 -0800

OK Go and Sesame Street: Together at last.

By: Felex

Felex — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:44:18 -0800

This was exactly what I expected from that link, nothing more nothing less. It was also awesome.

By: erniepan

erniepan — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:20:09 -0800

They misspelled cyan and magenta. And what happened to black?

By: nickrussell

nickrussell — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:44:32 -0800

Obligatory Leslie Feist Sesame Street Appreciation Link

By: Faintdreams

Faintdreams — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 02:33:34 -0800

Boootiful.

By: BurnChao

BurnChao — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 02:34:12 -0800

It teaches kids that the universe has building blocks. Before, they just see a bunch of colors. After, they see a bunch of colors and ask themselves what they are made of. Preps for the whole concept of atoms and whatnot.

By: Grangousier

Grangousier — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 02:47:37 -0800

It teaches kids that if they memorise the explanation given by the teacher, and then repeat the explanation as closely as possible when asked about it, that that is the same thing as understanding the phenomenon. This will stand them in good stead for the rest of their lives. (Something about Wednesdays brings out the cynic in me. That and Pleasant Indie Pop, with or with out the Jangle.)

By: knile

knile — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:34:02 -0800

Very much old-school Sesame Street feel to it. Very nice. That's because it was directed by Al Jarnow, a classic Sesame Street animator previously on the blue. (I must credit my source on this: Al's son Jesse, who has a lovely weird show on one of MeFi's favorite radio stations, WFMU.)

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:45:24 -0800

Quite lovely. I wish we'd had Sesame Street in the UK when I was little. Our equivalent, Play School, didn't have joyfully singing Muppets. It had a cast of shabby inanimate soft toys including Hamble, a sour-faced plastic middle-aged woman/deformed baby thing so horrifying she stalked the nightmares of every pre-schooler in the country. To make matters worse Hamble was expressly designed to appeal to 'poor children', who might have trouble identifying with the stolidly middle class Big Ted, Little Ted and Humpty (a portly green egg who looked like he spent his weekends trolling for trade with George Melly).

By: curious nu

curious nu — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:54:48 -0800

A new OK GO video combined with Sesame Street is coming very close to MetaFilter terminal velocity. If only Simon's Cat had been in it, we might have reached singularity. Any cat, really. As long as there's a picture. You'll have to make do with a goose.

By: MCMikeNamara

MCMikeNamara — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:11:35 -0800

If we don't teach kids about primary colors early, they are just making a mess with their mom's food coloring in the kitchen rather than pretending to be scientists. (I'm hoping this isn't something that has changed in 30 years.)

By: maryr

maryr — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:29:22 -0800

For what it's worth, jack_mo, in the US, we had Mr. Rogers who visited the Land Of Make Believe. and while Daniel S. Tiger and Henrietta Pussycat were adorable, Lady Elaine Fairchilde was kind of terrifying, in retrospect and really, naming the mailman Mr. McFeeley? On a kids' show? Innocent enough, I know, but a little weird, Fred.

By: Slap*Happy

Slap*Happy — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 04:44:30 -0800

Fred McFeeley was his Grandfather's name, and also his middle name... Fred McFeeley Rodgers. No, I'm not making that up.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:54:27 -0800

Lady Elaine Fairchilde was kind of terrifying Jeepers. She looks like a repurposed Judy puppet.

By: y10k

y10k — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:22:54 -0800

But but but... red green and yellow aren't accepted primary colours! They are a guess at what primary colours were back before colour theory was understood. Why are they teaching them wrong information?

By: maryr

maryr — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:16:46 -0800

Slap*Happy, I know, and I understand, but still. My father goes by "Dick" but any Richards I have will be Rich or Richies.

By: Slap*Happy

Slap*Happy — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:13:32 -0800

Why are they teaching them wrong information? Because it's not wrong in the most common color systems three year olds have access to - namely, fingerpaint and magic markers. If you add red paint to blue paint, you get purple paint. If you scribble with the yellow and red markers at the same time, you get orange. The point isn't to teach color theory, the point is to show how things basic combine into other, more complicated things in a way that very little kids can test out on their own. It's crippling their photoshop education, true, but setting them on the right path to chemistry.