Two of Practickle’s objectives are beautifully brought to life in Laura Vaccaro Seeger’s award winning book, green:

• opening your child’s imagination to the high quality art in picture books
• creating images that expand your child’s imagination

 

As she creates images that broaden the concept of green into both natural and humorous shades, your listener and you will turn pages back and forth, point out details, talk about her ideas, and laugh at her wacky word play.

Even though the text in the book is sparse. The complexity of each page will slow you down as you study the two-page spreads and talk about how the cut-outs hidden in the paintings connect the current page to the previous page.

Press Here, a July selection, focuses on the primary colors.  Toward the end of Press Here, primary colors start to blend, creating new colors. green is a perfect extension of the blending, as you introduce the shades of a color.

Below are some activities that develop Practickle’s objectives:

• Watch the two-minute trailer on amazon.com that accompanies the book information about green. The musical accompaniment adds another dimension of art to the book. It’s a marvelous sensory experience.
• Have your child pick a color of the rainbow. Then, create shades of that color with whatever medium you choose. Give names to the shades. Talk about which shade is your favorite.
• Go to http://pbskids.org/curiousgeorge/games/mix_and_paint/mix_and_paint.html

 

This is a wonderful mix and paint page that allows the young artist to play with mixing and blending the primary colors into various shades.

• Pick a rainbow color. Instead of creating shades of a color take pictures with a camera or an iPad. Name the colors.

 

On Ms. Seeger’s website, she tells that in fifth grade she stated in an essay that she knew she was born to make picture books. Who knows when the idea first came to her?

See what this book and these activities spark in your child!