Rainbow Chameleon Book Review and Paper Plate Craft!

My kids and I enjoy reading Rainbow Chameleon 变色龙捉迷藏.  This board book is a cute story about a chameleon trying to find his friend.  The interactive tabs and colorful spinning wheels show how the chameleon adapts to its surroundings!  To reinforce the concept of the chameleon’s special color changing skills, we also made a spinning paper plate chameleon to extend the learning fun!

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Rainbow Chameleon 变色龙捉迷藏 Book – Quick Review

This is an adorable board book about chameleons and how they change color to blend into their surroundings.  The colorful spinning wheels are in the front and back cover, and each page has a pull-tab.  These interactive features are a fun, hands-on way for kids to learn about the chameleon’s unique skill!  The illustrations are simple with bold colors but not over-stimulating.

Since the text is repetitive, the story is fun to follow and also relatively easy for parents who are not fluent in Chinese (like me!) to learn.  My 19-month-old son and 4-year-old daughter both enjoy this book!  Here are pictures of the inside of book!

Paper plate chameleon craft!

Just for fun, to supplement this book reading, we made a paper-plate rainbow chameleon spinning wheel!  The idea is originally from Tippytoe Crafts, a website with wonderfully creative and educational ideas!  Since we try to incorporate literacy in our activities, we made two versions: Korean & Chinese.  We also made 2 paper plate chameleons because there 2 chameleons in the story!

In addition, I noticed that my kids loved to touch the “CHAMELEON” words on the board book, so I wanted to create the same effect on the plates. They loved feeling the texture of the words on our craft!

Important vocabulary:

• 变色龙 (Biànsèlóng / chameleon)
• 捉迷藏 (Zhuōmícáng / hide and seek)
• 变颜色 (Biàn yánsè / change colors)

What you need:

1. 2 paper plates
2. Paint – You can use different kinds of paint so your kids can explore and compare how they look!
3. Paint brushes
4. Pencil/marker
5. X-acto knife
6. Cutting board (I just used one from our kitchen)
7. Paper fastener
8. Tape
9. Optional: chameleon template (many free options on Google!)

How to make a chameleon paper plate spinning wheel:

1. Paint paper plate desired colors. This is really fun for kids to use whatever paint they choose!
2. Use a second paper plate to trace chameleon template or draw chameleon freehand
3. Use marker to write 变色龙 (chameleon) in thick font
   
4. Put cutting board under paper plate
5. Cut out chameleon shape – The cutting steps are reserved for adults and older, trustworthy children only!!
6. Cut around the text 变色龙.
7. Use tape to hold the any loose pieces between the characters. Tape the front and back of the plate to secure the Chinese characters.  This also will help the characters last longer with curious little hands!
8. Cut a slit in center of the plate
9. Insert and secure paper fastener
10. Spin, spin, spin!

We actually made these paper plate chameleon wheels last year, and the plates are still holding up really well!  This is mainly because my older daughter has been hiding them from her little brother haha.

Here is a close up of the Chinese chameleon paper plate.  We affixed tape to both sides of the paper plate to keep the Chinese characters in place!

If you read this Chameleon book or try this paper plate chameleon activity, please let us know!  Leave a comment and don’t forget to tag @CHALKAcademy on Instagram and Facebook!  We love to see how other families do educational activities!

Recommended activities

Check out our other fun and educational spinning Chinese activities!  The following wheels are free, editable, and interactive printables!

• Calendar Wheels (Days of the week, months of the year)
• Chinese Zodiac Wheel
• Emoji Wheel

Here our are favorite PAPER PLATE CRAFTS for kids!

• Bilingual paper plate emojis
• Fish anatomy paper plate craft
• Number matching sunshine craft
• Rainbow fish paper plate craft
• Yin-yang paper plate puzzle
• Clock-face threading activity
• Counting flower petals – groups of 2s
• Counting watermelon seeds

For all of our hands-on learning activities, click here!

For all of our favorite Chinese children’s book recommendations, click here!

Bilingual English and Chinese Facebook Parent Group

As always, please leave a comment with any questions, and I’ll try my best to answer them!  Or better yet, ask other parents in our Facebook group!  Montessori-inspired Kids Learning Chinese and English is a community of parents worldwide who are excited to share bilingual book recommendations, Montessori tips, and learning materials!

Happy learning, friends!