We LOVE the book Fluffy McWhiskers Cuteness Explosion by Stephen W. Martin and Dan Tavis! My kids started asking me to read this to them nightly, and one night they came up with a plan to make an entire day devoted to color explosions like in the book.
It was a great day for the kids, lots of clean-up and transitions for me, but overall it was worth trying all these activities.
We still read this book almost every single night. The funny illustrations, the repetition of the word Kaboom!, and how the story ended make this an incredible story to read aloud to young learners.
For free printouts for the below activities please visit my Teacher’s Pay Teacher page for these resources.
Color Explosion Book Activities that relate to Fluffy McWhiskers Cuteness Explosion
- Sensory tray animal city
- Fluffy paint
- Splatter painting
- Do a Dot paint cat craft
- Fluffy paint water sensory table & clean animals activity
- The sequence of events mix and match
- Picture of the day/ Story of the day writing practice
- Water Balloons (To hopefully wash away the colorful mess from the day!)
Sensory Tray Animal City
Materials for the Sensory Tray Animal City
- Tuff Tray (sensory bin)
- Green colored rice
- Rainbow loose parts (legos, interlocking cubes, popsicle sticks, etc.)
- Animal figures
- Book- Fluffy MsWhiskers Cuteness Explosion
The kids helped me put together this tray and got to work making a vet clinic to help all the animals in this city that went “Kaboom!” After seeing the cutest cat in the world, Fluffy McWhiskers. Kids might also want to recreate a scene from the book using these materials.
Fluffy Paint
Materials for Fluffy Paint
- Washable paint
- Shaving cream
- Water
- Paintbrushes
- Cardstock, construction paper
- Drying rack
- Cookie tray/ painting tray
Using a cookie tray, we mixed washable paint, a dash of water, and some shaving cream to create fluffy colors. Of course, food coloring works with this as well. Then I gave the kids a random assortment of materials to create art.
Splatter Paint
Materials for Splatter Paint
- Straws
- Water
- Washable paint
- Paper
- Paint tray
- Paintbrushes/ sponges
We mixed paint and a small amount of water to make the paint easier to spread. Then using sponges, we would splash some paint on the paper and use the straw to make a color explosion like the “kaboom”event from the book. The kids loved watching the colors mix and blend together on the paper.
Do a Dot Painting to make a Color Explosion Fluffy Craft
Materials for this color explosion artwork
- Do a Dot paints
- Paper
- Black marker & googley eyes
- Cardboard cat cutout
- Tape (I added 1-4 pieces of tape to the edge of the stencil to hold the cardboard in place over the white paper.)
The kids wanted to make their own Fluffy McWhiskers from the book. I thought it might be fun to try and make “color explosions” from using dot paint. I found scraps of cardboard and used a rotary cutter to cut out a shape of a cat. Then holding it down onto paper, the kids helped me splatter dot paints of rainbow colors all over the cat form until we covered it completely. The key with this activity is to prepare the dot paint by squeezing them as you hit the paper. The harder the kids hit the paper, the better the splatter appeared.
Clean Color Explosion Animals Water Sensory Table Activity
This activity was messy and my kids’ favorite! It was not my favorite, but we did it outside, so clean-up wasn’t too bad. I recommend having towels ready to go before playing.
Materials for color explosion water table activity
- Leftover paint (we used the cookie tray full of food color & water from the earlier activities)
- Eye droppers
- Shaving cream
- Small tubs (IKEA Flisat table bins)
- Clean water
- Animal figures
- Towels
- Patience & maybe a water hose ready for clean-up
The kids started by picking animal figures from the book to add into tubs. Then we filled the tubs over with shaving cream. Next, we placed our cookie tray filled with 6-8 colors of food color & water mixtures into the IKEA FLISAT table- a large tub will work. Next, the kids splashed colors onto the shaving cream using an eyedropper. Then they mixed all the colors together to make rainbow swirls over the animals.
After they were done mixing colors, I removed the tray of colors and introduced clean water. Next, the kids started cleaning their “kaboom” color explosion animals in the clean water. I gave them towels and an extra clean bin during this time.
Tip: I found it helpful to immediately rinse out the color tray and shaving cream tubs while kids continued cleaning their animals.
The Sequence of Events Mix and Match
I thought it would be a fun educational activity to find pictures on canva.com that symbolize events from the book Fluffy McWhiskers Cuteness Explosion. Then I found an image of a rainbow explosion to use as a mat to sort events from the beginning, middle, and end of the story. The kids scrambled up the symbols and put them in order. We went back in the book to check how they did.
For these free resources please visit my TPT page and download the 17 page PDF.
Picture of the Day/ Story of the Day Activity
Again using canva.com, I found funny animal photos to use for inspiration for our daily picture of the day activity. The kids looked at the photo and tried to develop a story idea. Before I write their thoughts onto chart paper, we plan a beginning, middle, end of the story and a problem and solution. My daughter does not feel comfortable writing her ideas onto paper, so I still act as a scribe. But I love pointing out Secret Story phonic skills as we read back their ideas from the chart we made together. We LOVE searching for Secret Stories we know as we write.
Water Balloons Color Explosion Activity
We ended our messy day with water balloons. It was a great way to wash away the last drops of paint from the earlier activities.
Thank you for visiting Live Learn Literacy!
I hope your little learners love these activities and book as much as my children. It was more prep work than I usually do for a day, but the end result of my children’s laughter, learning, and joy was well worth it. For more ideas, please visit my other posts. Thanks again- Chrissy
