“Birds” by Kevin Henkes is a beautifully illustrated book about birds that inspired a little colorful painting in our classroom…
This book does a wonderful job presenting simple concepts as you take a picture walk through the many sizes, types, and colors of birds…
At one point, the book takes a look at what the sky might look like should we just see the color of birds flying through the air. As we looked over this page, the children tried to guess which bird might leave behind each color. We also used this page of the book as our source of inspiration for the paintings at our art table…
At the art table, the children found paint, brushes, paper, and painting cubes. Painting cubes are simple homemade dice with a different color spot on each side of the square…
I set out the book and invited the children to roll the cube and then use that color of paint to add color to their paper…
The children could adapt this idea any way they wished. Some of the children would keep rolling the cube until they had a chance to use each color. Others would roll the cube and use that color of paint regardless is they had used it before…
Each child had their own cube but we shared the paint colors. Sharing paint colors invites cooperation and communication. The children would say, “Who has the red paint?” and “Can I please have the blue paint after you?” I often like to do activities where the children need to work with each other to complete their individual goals…
The color cubes also invited an unusual painting experience. The children had to look for each color before they used it and then decide how they wanted to use the color on their paper…
Because we were using the page from the “Bird” book as our source of inspiration, the children created colorful designs on their paper. Â However, it would be interesting to see what the children might have chose to paint had we not tied the color cube painting to this page of the book…
If you would like a free downloadable copy of the color cube, you can find it by heading over to Preschool Spot….
Available on Amazon
Links to Grow On
A Sunny Day Drawing Cube from Teach Preschool