Colour Mixing (Part 2)

Monkey and I have done almost 150 activities together in the past year and a half. I know I say this a lot but this one is my favourite! Okay, top three for sure :)

We're continuing with colour mixing activities that we stared last week. Today's activity is much more interactive than the frozen paint cubes we did on Friday. 

Supplies: water, food colouring, plastic containers, squeeze bottles, droppers, measuring spoons (...or anything else you have that your child can use to transfer water)

To set up, I filled the three largest plastic containers and three squeeze bottles  with water. Then Monkey helped drop in the yellow, blue, and red food colouring. 

We laid everything out on the table. 

What kid wouldn't want to jump right in?! I know I say this all the time, but you can't go wrong with water play. 

I didn't want to give Monkey any rules about how to play, but I did guide him a little. I wanted him to mix the primary colours correctly to make all the secondary colours, at least at the beginning. 

He started wth blue and yellow, using the droppers. 

Lots of great fine motor practice going on here at the same time as the colour mixing exploration. 

Next he moved onto mixing yellow and red, this time using a measuring spoon. 

He did red and blue with the spoons as well. Then, of course, he had to know what happened when he put all three  primary colours together. 

After he had done all the appropriate combinations, I stepped back from the activity and let Monkey have complete control over the mixing. 

He absolutely loved mixing the colours together. To my surprise, for the most part, he kept on mixing only two colours together to make the secondary colours. He did make a few more brown mixtures, too. 

Every so often he would call out to me, asking how to make a certain colour. But instead of telling him, I always had him think about it and give a guess first. He got it right more often than not. 

I had originally given him ten small plastic containers to mix in, and after filling them all he asked for more. We refilled the bottles twice and the bigger plastic containers once. 

Monkey played with this for over an hour. That's a long time for a four year old to be 100% engaged! If you have a preschooler, try this, I'm sure you won't be disappointed. 

Mar