Worksheet Grade 6 Art & Music

Watershed Map Colors: Mixing Paint by Ratio for Fern Hollow

A grade 6 art-math worksheet where students mix custom map colors by ratio and scale the recipes to paint a large map of the Fern Hollow watershed.

Grade: Grade 6
Subject: Art & Music
Material: Worksheet
Time: 30 min
Prep: No prep
Materials: None

Standards

6.RP.A.1 Common Core Math

Understand the concept of a ratio and use ratio language to describe a ratio relationship between two quantities. For example, 'The ratio of wings to beaks in the bird house at the zoo was 2:1, because for every 2 wings there was 1 beak.'

How this material aligns: Items 3, 4, and 8 have students describe the paint mixtures using ratio language such as three parts blue for every one part white, which is exactly the ratio-description skill 6.RP.A.1 defines.

All materials for 6.RP.A.1 →

6.RP.A.3 Common Core Math

Use ratio and rate reasoning to solve real-world and mathematical problems, e.g., by reasoning about tables of equivalent ratios, tape diagrams, double number line diagrams, or equations, including finding a percent of a quantity and converting measurement units.

How this material aligns: Items 5, 6, 7, and 9 scale the color recipes up while keeping the mixture the same, reasoning about equivalent ratios and batches in the real-world context 6.RP.A.3 describes.

All materials for 6.RP.A.3 →

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This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-07-23.

Objectives

Students will describe a paint mixture using ratio language.
Students will scale a color recipe to a larger batch while keeping the ratio equal.

Vocabulary

Watershed: A watershed is all the land where rain that falls will drain to the same stream, river, or lake. Everyone lives in a watershed, no matter how far from the water they live.

Also: ratio, batch, equivalent ratio, part

Teacher overview

A sixth-grade art class is painting a large map of the Fern Hollow watershed (a fictional area used for this worksheet), the land where all the rain and streams drain into one main creek. To keep the map consistent, the class mixes two custom colors by ratio. "River blue" is 3 parts blue paint to 1 part white paint. "Forest green" is 2 parts blue paint to 3 parts yellow paint. On this worksheet a "part" is a fixed scoop, so the colors stay the same no matter how large the batch. Students describe the mixtures with ratio language and then scale the recipes up to cover bigger areas. The common misconception to watch for is that students add the same amount to each color when enlarging a batch, instead of multiplying both parts by the same number.

Watershed Map Colors: Mixing Paint by Ratio for Fern Hollow — Grade 6 Art & Music

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Use these two recipes for every item.
River blue: 3 parts blue to 1 part white.
Forest green: 2 parts blue to 3 parts yellow.

River blue uses 3 parts blue and 1 part white. How many parts are in one batch of river blue in all?
One part equals 2 teaspoons. How many teaspoons of blue paint are in one batch of river blue?
Describe river blue with ratio language. Fill in the blanks: for every ___ parts blue there is ___ part white.
Describe forest green with ratio language. What is the ratio of blue to yellow?
A student needs 15 parts of forest green for the forest area. One batch of forest green is 5 parts. How many batches is that?
In those batches from item 5, how many parts of yellow are used in all?
To paint the creek, a student uses 12 parts of river blue. One batch of river blue is 4 parts. How many parts of white paint are used in all?
In forest green, what is the ratio of yellow to blue?
A student mixes a bigger batch of river blue using 6 parts blue. How many parts of white keep the color exactly the same?
Explain your reasoning: why must the ratio stay equal when a student makes a bigger batch of river blue?

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key

Answer: 4 parts. River blue is 3 parts blue plus 1 part white, so 3 + 1 = 4 parts.
Answer: 6 teaspoons. There are 3 parts blue, and each part is 2 teaspoons, so 3 × 2 = 6 teaspoons.
Answer: 3 parts blue and 1 part white. River blue has three parts blue for every one part white.
Answer: 2 to 3. Forest green has 2 parts blue for every 3 parts yellow.
Answer: 3 batches. One batch is 2 + 3 = 5 parts, and 15 ÷ 5 = 3 batches.
Answer: 9 parts. Each batch has 3 parts yellow, and there are 3 batches, so 3 × 3 = 9 parts.
Answer: 3 parts. 12 parts of river blue is 12 ÷ 4 = 3 batches, and each batch has 1 part white, so 3 parts white.
Answer: 3 to 2. Forest green has 3 parts yellow for every 2 parts blue.
Answer: 2 parts. The ratio 3 to 1 doubles to 6 to 2, so 6 parts blue needs 2 parts white.
Answer: If only one color is increased, the mixture changes shade. Multiplying both parts by the same number keeps the ratio equal, so the color stays the same in a larger batch.

Differentiation

Support

Provide small counters in two colors so students can build each batch by hand before writing the numbers. Give a filled-in example for a different color (1 part red to 2 parts white) worked all the way through before students start item 1.

Extension

Ask students to invent a third map color with its own ratio, state the ratio in words, and then show the recipe for a batch three times as large. Have them prove the enlarged batch keeps the same color by comparing the two ratios.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "part," "batch," and "ratio" using two labeled cups of colored water poured in a fixed count. Provide the sentence frame "for every ___ parts of ___ there is ___ part of ___," and allow students to show item 10 with a drawing of two cups next to a bigger pair of cups.