Color Your World | An Art Project for Kids Inspired by My Colors, My World

I want the characters in the stories my children read to reflect the amazingly beautiful diversity of our world.  In fact, I am committed to building a diverse home library and hope that you join me this year in increasing the number of books in your home that represent our world.  

In partnership with Lee and Low Publishing, I have the opportunity to bring to you diverse books on a selected theme: this month we are looking at ART!

A special thanks to Lee and Low for sending us a copy of these books so that we can share our activities with you our readers! Affiliate links are included in this article for ease of purchasing.

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My Colors, My World: Mis colores, mi mundo

Click the image to read more about this book.

My Colors, My World: Mis colores, mi mundo is a vibrant picture book about a little girl named Maya and her search for colors in her world.  This bilingual book has become a favorite in my house and has encouraged us to seek out the colors in our world.

 This book has inspired this Color Your World Art Activity

Color Your World Art Activity

Learning Objective: Connect wet on wet watercolor technique with learning about the shapes of the continents.

Materials Needed:

• White paper
• Water color paint
• Paint brush
• Scissors
• World map as a shape guideline
• Glue
• Blue construction paper

Directions for Color Your World Activity

1. Wet your entire piece of white paper.

2. Paint a variety of colors onto the wet paper. Watch as the colors blend and move.

3. Allow the painting to dry overnight.

4. Cut the continents out of the painted paper.  Estimate the shapes. It is ok no to be perfect!

5. Glue the continents to the blue construction paper.

6. Display!

Companion ART Themed Diverse Books:

Children benefit from reading a variety of book around a similar topic.  When building our home library collection, I think about books that portray children of all backgrounds, doing kid things, and solving real life problems. This diverse book collection of ART themed books is a MUST read!  My children and I have truly enjoyed them all!  

This collection represents a variety of ethnicities – including kids in glasses (always something I’m on the lookout for.)

David’s Drawings is a delightful text for children ages 4 and up about a drawing a tree.  It celebrates children’s ideas and highlights a class working together to create a picture.  The perfect read for right before a collaborate art project!  Read book reviews here.

Butterflies for Kiri tells the story of a young artists who gets frustrated when she cannot fold her new pretty papers perfectly into origami shapes.  I saw my own children’s frustrations in not being able to do something right the first time and adore how author Cathryn Falwell Read book reviews here.

The Pot that Juan Built is written for slightly older readers (6 and up) but my 2, 5 and 8 year old all enjoyed the story.  It combines a rhythmic sing-songy story with non-fiction facts about the artist in an appealing book for children of all ages. We really liked the real life photographs at the end. Read the book reviews here.

You may also enjoy these activity ideas about diversity with your child…