Your kids will love this Pete the Cat inspired activity!
We have been reading many of the “Pete the Cat” books by Eric Litwin and the latest book we read was “Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes.” …
In this book, Pete the Cat takes a walk in his new white shoes and along the way steps in a pile of strawberries and more  which makes his shoes turn different colors…
Why we Love Pete the Cat Books
The fun part about reading Pete the Cat books is the way each book is repetitive, predictable, and invites the children to join into the reading too…
Expanding on the Story
After reading our story, the children went off to explore their own white shoe and a little shoestring art. At one table the children found white shoe shapes cut from cardboard and crayons…
Exploring Colors with Pete the Cat
On the other table, the children found white shoe strings and liquid food color…
The children decorated their shoes with the crayons…
And used the watered down liquid water color to dye their white shoestrings different colors…
Enjoying the Process
Some of the children used the paint brushes to dye their shoe strings and others dipped the shoestrings in the liquid water color…
Building Fine Motor Skills
We had the table covered with several layers of paper towels so in the process, we had beautiful tie dyed paper towels too! Â One child enjoyed the liquid water color so much that he stayed to dye the paper towels for a little while longer using a dropper…
Once the children finished with a shoestring, we wrapped it up in a dry paper towel and wrung it out for a few minutes. Â Then each child laced his or her own shoestring through the holes in his or her own decorated shoe….
Every shoe turned out a little different and all were simply beautiful…
Questions you may ask
I got the shoestrings from the Dollar Store – I only needed one shoestring per child.
The cardboard I used was left over from the DIYÂ Table Top Puppet Stage. (I used the left-over pieces cut out of the center of the stage for the shoes).
I used Coloration Liquid Water Color from Discount School Supply which is washable from the children’s hands but is brilliant in color.  I have also used Sargent brand as well.
We used Crayola Twistable Slick Stix to color our shoes.
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