Go On a Paint Chip Picture Walk

What You Need:

• Several paint sample cards from the paint department at your local hardware store
• Camera
• Notebook with blank pages or blank paper and a three-ring binder
• Glue stick
• Markers

What You Do:

1. Take your child to the paint department of a local hardware store, and let them pick out ten different paint chip cards. Steer them toward colors they're likely to find in the outdoors near your home.
2. Go to an area where you and your child can go for a walk along a hiking trail.
3. As you are walking through the area, encourage your child to look for items that match the colors on the paint chip cards. For example, if they have a green paint chip card, they may pick out some leaves they think matches the green card.
4. Let your child take a picture of the item they found that matches their paint chip card.
5. Help your child find something in nature to match each of the ten color sample cards your child picked out. If you can’t find all ten, let your child know they still did a great job!
6. Print or develop the pictures your child took while out walking.
7. Give your child the pictures they took and the paint chip cards.
8. Explain to them how to make a scrapbook by gluing each paint chip card down on a page with the corresponding picture. Have your child write the color at the top of the page in a marker of the same color. If your child is not writing yet, you can write the color at the top of the page for them

If this is a project your child enjoys, you can go on future paint chip picture walks and keep adding pages to their scrapbook.