Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh is about three adventurous mischievous mice who learn about mixing paint colors while trying to avoid a sneaky cat.

Activities for this book:

1. Mixing primary colors to get secondary color
   • Supplies:
     • 3 Ziploc sandwich bags
     • red, yellow, and blue washable paint
   • What to do:
     • Put equal amounts of blue and red into a Ziploc bag.
     • Seal the bag
     • Mix paint to see what color it turns
     • Repeat with yellow and red then yellow and blue
   • 
2. Print out mice templates (click here)
   • Use primary and secondary colors to color mice
   • Cut them out and glue them on a new paper.
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3. Mouse hide and seek
   • Print out templates
   • Color mice and cut them out
   • Glue to craft sticks (tongue depressors)
   • Hide mice and take turns finding them
   • You can use mouse templates with or without tail. If you use the one without, add a chanel stem tail.
   • 
4. Matching game
   • Print out templates
   • Color mice primary and secondary colors
   • Match mice to same color construction paper
   • Put green mouse in front of different color paper. Go through all primary and secondary colors. Which color hid the mouse best? Which color did the mouse stand out against? Repeat with each color mouse.
   • 
5.  Make footprints
   • On a piece of large white paper, put a squirt of red, yellow, and blue paint.
   • Let kids walk their fingers through the paint into another color across the paper.
   • 

Benefits of art activities:

1. Helps develop sensory motor skills by allowing children to mix paint with their hands. They see and feel what is happening.
2. Children learn about primary and secondary colors and how to mix primary colors to get secondary colors.
3. Cutting helps develop fine-motor skills.
4. Children learn to recognize and match colors.
5. Using puppets to retell the story help with memorization and sequencing skills.
6. Using puppets to tell their own story help children explore their creativity and communication skills.

Outschool Story Time and Art

I am offering a story time and art club on Outschool.com. If you are interested in sharing stories and creating art with your children, check out my class here. I will read a new story each week and walk you through an art activity that goes along with that day’s book.