Mouse Paint

Mouse Paint
by Ellen Stoll Walsh

Ages 0-3


Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh is about three white mice on a white paper who are hiding from... who else? Cat! They discover three jars of paint - blue, yellow and red. They jump into the jar and get themselves colored, making puddles on the paper. This is where we get the reinforcement as far as primary colors go.

And then, the mice each jump in a puddle of a different color to create the secondary colors - orange, purple, and green. Feeling sticky, they wash themselves off, cheekily in the CAT bowl. And decide to color the paper instead, leaving just a little white, in case the cat comes by.

A sweet little book, very lively mice, with a lasting lesson on mixing colors to get new ones.

Introducing colors could be easy, or could be tricky. With Ana, I just pointed to the primary colors in the first round and kept repeating till I was about ready to give up thinking it is not making any impact. Then, she started pointing them out in her own way... which encouraged me to continue with the pink and brown and orange and other common colors.

I wonder how or what the little minds abstract as far as hues/shades of a color goes. How do they correctly point out azure and cobalt and navy as all blue?