Colour Exploration: Primary Colours to Secondary Colours

This is a fun activity that my mother-in-law does with the kids.  Perfect for a rainy day inside or on your picnic table in the sun. (Spring is right around the corner, right!?)  Use the primary colours so you can see what happens when colours mix to form the secondary colours!

Materials

• Wax paper
• Tape
• Plastic eye droppers (these can be purchased inexpensively at a drugstore) or pipettes (you can buy these online or at educational and/or science stores)
• Straws, condiment containers
• Food colouring (red, yellow & blue)
• 3 small containers or more if you are working with a large table and/or many children
• Water
• Smocks
• Cloths to clean up any spills

Directions

• Prior to staring we read these books:  The Great Blueness and Other Predicaments (Arnold Lobel) & The Color of Things (Vivienne Shalom) to get us thinking about colour.

• Tape down (overlapping them) strips of wax paper to cover your table.

• Don your smocks.

• Add food colouring to water, making three small containers of red, yellow and blue.  (With young children I wouldn’t fill them too full.)

• Put droplets of the coloured water onto the wax paper and have fun mixing the colours.  (e.g., blow the drops towards each other with the straws, create images with the water drops, race each other blowing droplets across the table, see if you can move them with your condiment squirter).

• When you are finished, wipe your water droplets up, allow your wax paper to dry and re-use it for another project such as: http://make-it-your-own.com/sun-catcher-peacock/

Purpose

• Developing a beginning understanding of colour theory .

Safety Notes

• Some tape may leave a residue when removed so you might want to use a picnic table or craft table.
• Food colouring may leave a stain, so keep this in mind in regards to the surface you work on, cloths you use for clean-up etc. and be sure to wear a smock.