I don’t know about your toddlers and preschoolers, but my Pooky just LOVES to paint! Usually I just give her some washable paint and thick paper and let her go to town with it (while strapped in her high chair out of arm’s reach of anything). But this time I decided to get a little more intentional about it and explore mixing primary colors.
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I came across the book Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh.
It is such a cute and simplified description of how the primary colors can be mixed to make secondary colors. I knew it was a quality book that would be great to use to explore mixing primary colors with young kids.
To start off our exploration of mixing primary colors, I read the book to Pooky a couple of times.
Then I let her “read” through the book on her own a few times.
Next, I set up her work station starting with just a dollop each of red and yellow paint.
Before giving her the paint, I showed her the pages in the book where the mouse who was covered in red paint splashed around in the puddle of yellow paint which mixed it together and turned it orange.
Then I gave her the materials and asked her to mix the red and yellow together to make orange. I demonstrated a bit to show her what I meant by mixing the colors.
She immediately caught on and was excited to see it make orange.
It wasn’t long before she filled her page with the color!
We repeated the process with the colors yellow and blue.
We talked about what was happening to the colors as she mixed them.
We referred back to the book each time we switched to different primary colors to see what new color they would make.
Pooky really seemed to enjoy this activity!
(I’m sure your little ones would too.)
I don’t know how much Pooky internalized, but she had fun with the process.
(And since we used washable paint, she cleaned up pretty easily.)
Ever since doing this activity, Pooky is constantly curious about what new color can be made by mixing two other colors.
Another way we’ve been studying color is with our Rainbow activities including this Rainbow Ice Sensory Sink.
For more inspiration for fun and educational kid activities, follow me on Pinterest.
It looks like she had a lot of fun – I’m making notes because I’m always on the look out for fun toddler activities for my twins.
She did have fun! I’m sure your kiddos will too. Thanks for stopping by!
My daughter loves mixing colors! It’s the first thing she does when we paint! I love the book you paired with the activity!
Thanks! I love it when a book and an activity come together. And that book is definitely great! I can’t wait to get the others.
Fantastic idea. I was wondering how to introduce primary colours to my toddler so thank you for the inspiration.
Wonderful! I’m glad you found it useful. I was so happy when I stumbled upon that book because I knew it was simple enough for my daughter to follow along. Have fun with color mixing!
I love this book and have used it so often in the classroom to teach colours and colour mixing 🙂
Now that I discovered it, I can certainly see why! Thanks for stopping by.
Coming over from the Kit Lit Blog Hop.
This is a favorite book that I used to read to my preschool class. I am not a mouse fan but do love this book.
Looks like you had a great time.
We both enjoyed it a lot. Thanks for stopping by.
What a good way to get kids exploring and thinking about colour! Stopping by from the KidLit blog hop. Feel free to hop on by in return!
Thanks for stopping by. I will certainly pop over.
Love this story! I used to volunteer as an art teacher at our elementary school and this book was a valuable teaching tool for kindergarten and 1st graders. Plus, it makes learning fun and entertaining which instills the lesson of colors. Thanks for sharing!
Yes, I can see that there’s so much to get out of this one book! I love that you volunteered to teach art. I wish every school could afford an art teacher full time, it’s such a valuable topic for kids to explore.
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