The Day The Crayons Quit: Jaime Locke

The Day the
Crayons Quit
created by
Jaime Locke
“The fluent reader sounds good, is easy to listen to, and reads with enough
expression to help the listener understand and enjoy the materials.”
~Charles Clark, 1999
The bridge between decoding and comprehension is FLUENCY.
Our job as reading teachers is to model, teach, encourage and promote fluent
reading with our primary kiddos.

This play is based on the hilariously clever book of
the same name by Drew Daywalt.
There is also a sequel, called

The Benefits of Doing Readers’ Theater:
☺ Improved Fluency (pace, smoothness, expression)
☺ Students of different reading abilities can read together

and help each other.
☺ It’s FUN!
Do Readers’ Theater:
☺ With your whole class
☺ In your small reading groups
☺ With your RTI groups
☺ As part of school-wide Explorations
☺ With your class’ big (reading) buddies

Name __________________________________
The Day the Crayons Quit
Narrator Red Blue Yellow Orange Green Pink Gray
Narrator: Once upon a time

Gray: Move over!
Narrator: Excuse me?
Gray: No, not you. I was talking to the stubby little blue crayon that is in
my way.
Narrator: Wait. What? Did I hear talking coming from that box of
crayons?
Pink: Well it’s not coming from that empty pizza box over there.
Gray: Pizza. What would I know about pizza, I’m just a gray crayon.
Duncan always colors pizzas with red crayon.
Narrator: Who’s Duncan?
Red: He’s our owner. And yes, I do color all the pizzas because most
pizzas have tomato sauce on them and tomatoes are
Pink: Red. We know. We get it. You are Duncan’s favorite crayon.
Red: I wouldn’t say that I’m his favorite , but he just happens to color a
lot of red things like hearts, apples, strawberries and fire engines.
Blue: He doesn’t color everything red. He uses me for water. . .rivers. . .
water. . .oceans. . .lakes. . .
Pink: Water. We know. We get it. You are Duncan’s favorite crayon.
!
Narrator: I still haven’t met this Duncan character. Is he around?
Blue: I’m not saying I’m his favorite crayon but he’s used me sooooo
much that I’ve shrunk! Look at me! I used to be 10 centimeters tall
and now I’m only 4.
Green: It’s so sad. He can’t even see over the edge of the crayon box
anymore. I’ve offered to sub for him but Duncan won’t let me.
Narrator: Okay. Let me get this straight: You are crayons. You belong to
a boy named Duncan. You are grouchy and upset with him.
Does that sound right?
Orange: Hey! Who are you calling grouchy? I’m not grouchy. I’m
confident but annoyed.
Yellow: More like annoying . Once and for all: I am the color of the sun!
Green: Uh oh. Here it comes. . .
Orange: NO YOU’RE NOT! The sun is orange and everyone knows that!
Blue: Well everyone thinks water is blue and that’s not true.
Orange: What’s your point?
Gray: He doesn’t have one because he’s been used so much, ha!
Green: That was just plain rude .
Yellow: No, orange is just plain rude. He needs to go back to coloring
oranges. Get it? His name is orange and he colors oranges
orange.
Gray: You’re not as funny as me kid.
Narrator: Wait. I thought Duncan was the kid.
Pink: Knock, knock. "
Orange: Who’s there?
Pink: Orange.
Orange: Orange who?
Pink: Orange you glad I’m not claiming to be the color of the sun?
Gray: Okay, that was pretty funny.
Narrator: It sounds like you are all upset with Duncan and his unequal
crayon usage.
Gray: Yep.
Pink: You read my mind.
Red: Gotta agree with you.
Green: Well I disagree. I enjoy coloring dragons, alligators, trees,
crocodiles and frogs.
Yellow: And I enjoy coloring lemons, bananas and the sun.
Gray: I wouldn’t have mentioned that last one if I was you.
Yellow: But it’s true. The color of the sun is Y-E-L-L-O-W.
Orange: Stay calm. Just breathe and ignore yellow. Without me there
would be no pumpkins, tigers, basketballs or the S-U-N.
Narrator: I think you all need to S-T-O-P. However you are feeling is
normal for crayons, I guess. But instead of complaining, you
need to share your feelings with Duncan and maybe things
will change.
Green: Yeah, maybe Duncan would use me to color the sun.
Red: Yeah and I could be the color of water.
#
Blue: And I could be the color of pigs.
Gray: And I could be the color of tiny little pebbles.
Orange: But tiny little pebbles are gray.
Gray: Yes but coloring pebbles is faster and doesn’t use up as much as
an elephant would.
Yellow: Oo, Oo, Oo! Pick me to color elephants!
Narrator: Woah! Hold on everybody! If you all go changing the things
you typically color, I think you’ll really miss coloring the things
you are known for.
Blue: Yeah, maybe you’re right. I would miss my lakes, rivers and oceans.
Gray: Yeah, me too. I know I complain a little
Pink: A little?
Gray: Okay a lot but I am pretty fond of elephants and rhinos.
Narrator: I’ll go get you some paper and some envelopes and you can
each write Duncan a letter.
Red: Thanks!
Gray: Maybe we should go tell the other colors to write to Duncan too.
Orange: Yeah. That beige crayon needs to tell Duncan he’s embarrassed
that Duncan keeps peeling his paper off and leaving him naked!
Narrator: What? Who knew there was so much drama inside a simple
box of crayons.
All: The end.
More Reaching across the curriculum to incorporate
Readers’ science and social and studies allows students

more opportunities and access to
Theater informational reading, which helps students
“build a foundation of knowledge in these fields
Plays that will also give them the background
knowledge to be better readers in all content
areas” (CCSS).
non-FICTION
! Chinese New Year
! Christmas Customs
! Diary of a Worm
“The fluent reader sounds good, is ! Eggstravaganza
easy to listen to, and reads with ! Fingerprints
enough expression to help the ! Fireworks –free-
! Groundhog’s Day
listener understand and enjoy.”
! Salmon Come From Eggs –free-
~Charles Clark, 1999 ! Martin’s Message (MLK)
! The Life Cycle of the Apple
! The Life Cycle of the Butterfly
! The Life Cycle of the Frog
! The Life Cycle of the Pumpkin
! The Life Cycle of the Snowman
! The Water Cycle
! Volcanoes
FICTION
! Ant MEGA Pack
! The Great Turkey Race
! Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain –free-
! The Gruffalo
! Caps for Sale
! The Mitten
! Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type
! The Sneaky Leprechaun -free-
! Dogs Don’t Wear Sneakers –free-
! The Stinky Cheese Man -free-
! Don’t Let the Pigeon. . .
! The Three Billy Goats Gruff -free-
! Dooby Dooby Moo
! The Three Little Turkeys
! Fletcher and the Falling Leaves
! Tikki Tikki Tembo
! Giggle Giggle Quack
! Two Bad Ants
! Gingerbread Dude
! The Ugly Snowsuit
! Hey Little Ant!
! The Very Cranky Bear –free-
! How I Spent My Summer Vacation
! Thump, Quack, Moo!
! I Love You Stinky Face
! Tikki Tikki Tembo
! If You Give a Mouse a Cookie –free-
! Too Many Pumpkins –free-
! Moose’s Loose Tooth -free-
! Tooth Fairy PACK
! Partner Plays PACK #1, #2 & #3
! Pigs –free-
! Pigsty
! Pirate PACK www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Mrs-Locke
! Pirate Pete
! Room on the Broom
! Sadie & the Snowman
! Sneezy the Snowman
! Splat the Cat
! Snow PACK
! Stone Soup
! The Ant Bully
! The Enormous Potato
Thank you for your interest in this teaching resource!
Learn more about my resources @ The First Grade Bloom.
My Blog
http://firstgradebloom.blogspot.com
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My classroom website
www.asdk12.org/staff/locke_jaime/pages/1stgradeMrsLocke
E-mail
[email protected]
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The Day the

expression to help the listener understand and enjoy the materials.”

~Charles Clark, 1999

The bridge between decoding and comprehension is FLUENCY.

reading with our primary kiddos.

There is also a sequel, called

☺ Improved Fluency (pace, smoothness, expression)

☺ Students of different reading abilities can read together

☺ With your whole class

☺ In your small reading groups

☺ With your RTI groups

☺ As part of school-wide Explorations

☺ With your class’ big (reading) buddies

Narrator: Once upon a time

Readers’ science and social and studies allows students

KG Behind These Hazel Eyes

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