Surprise Color Mixing Heart Craft for Preschoolers

This month we are spotlighting books by Ellen Stoll Walsh as part of our January Virtual Book Club for Kids!

We love the book Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh so we decided to do a colorful heart mouse craft to go along with the book. This craft teaches kids about mixing colors and creates a fun surprise game to play with friends too!

We also love how this activity incorporates hearts since we are getting excited to start doing Valentine's Day crafts.

This craft is for preschoolers although toddlers can definitely do it and have fun. As you read through the instructions I'll share some tips for making this work with toddlers.

Materials Needed:

white cardstock cut into hearts (3 hearts)
blue, red, and yellow paint
scissors
pink cardstock cut into tiny hearts (6 hearts)
sponges (or paintbrushes)
a copy of Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh
tape/glue
yarn
black marker
plates to mix paint on

Directions:

To get started you want to paint the front of each heart with two of the primary colors mentioned in Mouse Paint. As we read through the book we painted our hearts.

One heart will be half yellow and half red. One will be half yellow and half blue. One will be half red and half blue.

Once all of the fronts of the hearts are dry then you'll want to mix the colors together to create the back color.

For example, the heart that is half yellow and red will get the colors mixed together on the back to make orange!

Once the backs of each heart are dry you can fold them to start creating your little mice.

Make sure that your mice show the primary colors on the top and try and hide the mixed inside colors as much as they can 🙂

If you are painting with a toddler make sure you use painter's tape to section off any area on your paper if you only want paint on a specific section.

Use markers to add eyes and a nose and then stick on mini pink hearts for ears. Lastly you'll want to tape on some yarn for tails.

Once your mice are created you are ready to play our Color Mixing Guessing Game!

To play you need to show your child the front of one mouse (primary colors side up). Tell your child to try and guess what color will be made when the two primary colors are mixed together!

Once your child has made a guess, flip over the mouse and check out it's belly.

You may be surprised to see what the answer is!

We thought this was a fun way to talk about colors and color mixing.

First we painted the mice and then mixed the primary colors together to make new colors. This was a great way to give kids hands-on experience with mixing colors!

Next we played our guess the color mixing game again and again and by the end my daughter had memorized which primary colors mixed together to make other colors. This game is also fun to play with younger friends.