Color Mixing with Mouse Paint!

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

• Read the story while paying particular attention to the color mixing.
• After reading the book, tell the students that they will go back to the book to make some notes.
• Go back through the book and list the colors the mice made on a piece of chart paper.
• Use color markers as you chart the color combinations.
• Hang the color chart where every student can see it.
• Point to the primary colors and explain that these colors are called primary colors because they are used to make other colors.
• Point to the secondary colors and explain that these colors are called secondary colors because they are made from mixing the primary colors.

Guided Practice

• Give every student an orange, green, and purple crayon.
• Have your students sit in a circle.
• Tell your students that you will hold up two primary colors.
• Ask students to respond by holding up their secondary color crayon that represents that color that those two primary colors make.
• Proceed by holding up the following combinations using crayons or cards: blue and red, red and yellow, and yellow and blue.
• Continue in this way until your students are holding up the correct secondary colors without hesitation.
• Now give every student the primary colors and reverse the activity.
• Tell your students to hold up the two primary colors needed to create the secondary color that you show.
• Proceed by holding up orange, green, and purple colors until your students are responding confidently.

Independent working time

• Collect the crayons and have your students remain in the circle.
• Hand out the Color Wheel worksheet.
• Tell your students that they will be using tempera colors with cotton swabs to complete this activity.
• Model how to use the primary colors to create secondary colors.
• Model how to put the correct colors on the right numbers in the worksheet.
• Place an example where your students can refer to it.
• Place the Colors visual guide where students can see it.
• Use small paper plates with a drop of red, blue and yellow paint for each student.
• Give each student several cotton swabs to mix and paint with.
• Dismiss your students to work in their table spots.
• Observe and guide your students as they work.