Students will learn about color mixing after reading the book, Mouse Paint.
By Kim Swanger [Kim is a teacher at Lakeview & Central in Council Bluffs, Iowa]
Art is a part of everything. Literacy and art make a great marriage of the two things young children are attracted to most: stories and kinesthetic experiences.
What You Need:
- large pieces of white paper
- tempera in primary colors (combine with a small amount of liquid fabric starch to cut drying time)
- copy of the book Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh
What You Do:
- Read the book Mouse Paint to students.
- Make note of how the mice in the story mix colors and make new colors.
- Ask students to predict the new colors the mice will make.
- When the book is finished, divide children into groups of three like the 3 mice in the story.
- Tell the students they now get to be the mice in the story as you make “puddles” of yellow, blue and red paint on the large pieces of white paper.
- Explain that their two fingers are mouse feet and they should “dance” in the puddles like the mice in the story.
- Emphasize that they need ONLY two fingers to dance.
- Observe as the students create secondary colors and ask them how they managed to make new colors.
- When dry, hang the pictures on the wall.
- Refer to them whenever you need to address how colors are made.
This is a somewhat messy project but it is a high-quality learning experience that the children will long remember. I’ve used this with preschool, kindergarten and 1st grade students but ALWAYS with a sink or a bucket of water!
