Good Paint Colors for Classrooms
White walls, while often used in classrooms, are not conducive to learning. All white rooms cause eye-strain and have an institutional feel. Classrooms should reflect the comfort and security of home. Colorful rooms promote creativity and cohesiveness of students and their teacher. The mere presence of colorful artwork on white walls does not replace the antiseptic feel of those rooms.
Wall colors
Classrooms should include a variety of wall colors to add visual interest and engage learner's minds. The wall students face for lectures should be painted a darker or complimentary shade to reduce eye-strain when looking up and down while taking notes. Walls with windows should be painted a brighter shade to equalize sunlight glare. Dark reds and blues are often irritating, and they may be detrimental to learning.
Room orientation
John C. Thompson of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company states that classrooms facing west or south should be painted in cool colors (blue or green). Rooms facing north or east should be painted in warm tones (yellow, orange or light red).
Color schemes
The study of our body's reaction to color has been dated back to Pythagoras. Color influences student attitudes, behaviors and learning. Preschool-age children are attracted to bright, warm colors. As children age they prefer darker colors: medium-cool colors in middle school and deep hues in high school.
Yellow is an energetic, lighthearted color perfect for history, foreign language, physics and economics classrooms. Bright orange is also stimulating, and it's appropriate for social studies classrooms. Soft peach inspires creativity and may be used in art rooms. Blue inspires tranquility and logical thought, and it works well in science, math and government classrooms. Green invokes feelings of nature and is calming, which works well for art, music, biology, language arts and economics rooms. Violet is dramatic, and it's perfect for band halls. Red, while energizing, is associated with anger and danger; it should not be used in classrooms.
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