Mouse Paint

Mouse Paint-

The project we made was painting palettes inspired by the book Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh. We began the 1st grade lesson by viewing some pictures on PowerPoint and determined that the pictures were created out of paint. During this project we learned about geometric and organic shapes as well as primary and secondary colors. Next we referred to the PowerPoint and learned the new vocabulary that we were going to learn with the project; defined Geometric and Organic shapes.

 Then each student chose one piece of construction paper and traced the pattern provided on the tables. The pattern was an organic shaped painting palette that was going to be our base for our project. After each student cut out their pattern we traced another little pattern six times on drawing paper that later became our mice. After those were cut we watch an narrated video on the book Mouse Paint. The book is about three curious mice who are trying to hide from a cat some they jump into paint and learn the basics of mixing colors. After learning more about the secondary and primary colors our teacher brought us trays of paint and we painted three of the mice spots- red, blue, yellow. Next, we learned how to mix the secondary colors by watching our teacher demonstrate for the class. The easiest way to mix the colors was by only adding small amounts of one color to the mixture at a time. When we had our colors mixed we painted the last three mice spots- purple, green, orange. When the paint was dried we glued the mice spots on our palettes any where we wanted. Lastly, we were given sharpies to draw eyes, nose, tails, and ears on our mice as well as our names on the back. 

This project was good for the age group however math could be integrated in a way that would be fun for the students. Before the lesson the teacher could experiment and figure out just how much red and yellow paint makes the perfect orange mixture and during the activity the students would be learning about measurement as well as art. Another activity still using the book Mouse Paint would be a finger painting lesson that can be used for younger ages. By only giving the students the primary colors they will be able to notice themselves how the colors are acting when mixed.