Book Munchers Book Club: A Color of His Own

The Book Munchers book club discussed Leo Lionni's book A Color of His Own, and then we did some activities. Because the picture book has some misinformation about chameleons, I supplemented our discussion with a nonfiction book about chameleons and we discussed the difference between fiction and nonfiction.

1. Catch a Bug: I gave the kids sticky hands to play with and let them try to "catch" the cards I had set out on the table. Each card had a different item on it, and the kids got to collect the cards that were things chameleons eat (mostly insects) and put back cards that showed things a chameleon would not eat (I generally used large mammals for these, to make it easy to tell apart).

Lesson Learned: Kids like to throw sticky hands at the ceiling. I wasn't bothered by this, but it did take longer to tear down this program at the end as we peeled the hands off the ceiling.

2. Color a Chameleon. The chameleon in the story changes color based on what he's sitting on, so I gave the kids a coloring page with a chameleon on it, and they could color it however they wanted. Some chose to make it like the pictures in the book we read, while others made realistic-looking chameleons.

3. Pony Bead Chameleons: We already have a lot of pony beads at our library, and I was able to find the directions to make a lizard online, so the kids made chameleons out of the beads. The added fun part was that I had UV-reactant beads for them to use, and these beads change color in the sun, so the chameleons they created could change color just like real ones do.