Let’s mix it up!

In the book, Black Cat and White Cat become new parents and their babies are quite a surprising colour!



But what colour did you think they would be? You might have guessed grey, polka-dotted or even half black, half white...


Just like the inseparable Black Cat and White Cat found out, when you mix two colours together, you create a brand new colour! Can you imagine what kind of new kitty colour these pairs of cats might create?
In the first one, there’s a clue in the cats’ tails...



What about a stripy cat and a cat with polka dots?



It can get a little tricky when you try to mix a pink, green and yellow chequered cat with an orange and blue cat (with a purple pentagon pattern, too!).



Experiment with colour some more and colour in your own cat family...



Download the activity sheet here

Black and white creations

Not all creatures are quite as fancy as these multi-coloured cats – but, just like Black Cat and White Cat, they’re still very beautiful!

Why don’t you take a piece of white paper and a black crayon (or a piece of black paper and a white crayon) and draw as many different black and white animals as you can think of. You’ll be surprised at how many there are!



You can also try turning different black and white animals into completely different animals – just by adding a splash, or a stripe, of white or black!

• Can you turn a white horse into a zebra?
• A polar bear into a panda?
• A fierce black bull into a gentle black and white cow?
• Trickiest of all, can you figure out where you need to add a spot of white to transform a black whale into an orca whale? (Hint: orca whales like to wear eye patches, just like pirates!)



If you love dogs, why don’t you try turning an all-white doggy into a black -and -white one?

We’ve turned this little guy into a spotted Dalmatian!



Shadow time

The story of Black Cat and White Cat is always set at night, when it’s dark, or in the day, when it’s nice and bright. This means that you can recreate all of the scenes in the book with shadow play! Here’s what you need to do:

1. Find a light source, like a torch or a bedside lamp. It’s best to have a small beam of light which is as narrow as possible.



2. Carefully cut out the different shapes provided and glue them on to a piece of card. (This bit’s quite fiddly, so get a grown-up to help if you get stuck.)

3. Now stick your cut-outs onto the top of little sticks (leftover wooden lollipop sticks are perfect for the job!) and – there you have it – your very own shadow puppets!



4. Finally, find a plain wall (without any pictures or displays) and hold your puppets in-between the wall and your light, directing the beam of light at both of them.



Now, it’s time to have loads of fun recreating your favourite moments from Black Cat and White Cat’s story … and imagining whole new stories for the characters, too!

Can you work out how to make the shadows bigger and smaller?



Download everything you'll need here

If you’d like to introduce new black and white characters into the story (and create some even more unlikely friendships!), simply draw the outline of the new animal and turn them into a shadow puppet, just like we did before for our cats! And if you do, be sure to share them with us by sending them to info@minibombo.it!





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