Primary Colour Exploration

 "I found I could say things with colour and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for."

Georgia O'Keeffe

A few days ago we invited the children to mix the different shades of primary colours of water in order to make new ones. The children were so eager to participate in this activity but ended up with a lot of brown water. When we discussed this as a whole group the children had many interesting theories for why the water ended up brown. We reviewed our colour equations and created a plan for how to create the shades of colours we still needed (as we wanted to display the colours on our windowsill in little bottles).

Today we invited the children to practise mixing the primary colours. We used clear plastic trays, water, and a few areas of red, blue and yellow.

The children eagerly mixed the colours, taking their time to reflect upon what combinations they needed to use in order to produce a desired shade.

We also love using droppers and pipettes in activities in order to strengthen children's fine motor skills and encourage perseverance as moving water from one area to another is no easy feat for little fingers!

When the children had created a shade they liked, we put the water into a little bottle and displayed these in the order of the spectrum on our window ledge. They are a gorgeous display in our art and science area, especially with the morning sun illuminating them!