by MaryAnn F. Kohl
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While trying to outsmart a cat, three white mice come upon jars of red, blue and yellow paint. They dance, jump, and amaze themselves as they mix colors, discovering how to make purple and orange and green!
Mouse Paint: by Ellen Stoll Walsh, author
Explore Stoll’s color mixing idea as acted out by three white mice. Print colorful mouse tracks with a plastic toy mouse dipped in paint. Imaginative mixing of colors is encouraged, like any good mouse would do!
Mixing Mouse Tracks:
Materials:
- plastic toy mice (used for party favors around Halloween – if none available, simply make a thumb or finger print, and pretend it is a mouse track! The eraser of pencil also makes a nice little track.
- tempera paints in flat Styrofoam grocery trays
Process:
1. Spread a thin layer of paint in a Styrofoam grocery tray, one color for each tray. Red, blue, and yellow primary colors are good choices and correlate with the story illustrations.
2. Press the feet of a plastic mouse into one color of paint, and then onto paper to make mouse tracks. Make many, many tracks here, there, and everywhere!
3. Dip the toy mouse in a variety of paint colors so colored tracks can mix and combine, just like in the book. Try to make purple, green and orange.
Variations:
• On a warm, sunny day, go outside with bare feet. Walk in a tray of cool squishy paint, and then on paper, recreating the idea of mouse tracks. Repeat one color or walk through previously made footprints so colors will mix and create new colors.
• On the end of a wooden dowel, glue a mouse shaped track cut from the insole of a shoe or a stick-on toe pad. Let the glue dry. Make mouse track prints by pressing the track in paint and then on paper.
• Create painted footprints directly on a blacktop or concrete playground, sidewalk, or driveway. Prints will eventually rinse away after many rainy days.