Explore Mixing Primary Colors with Young Kids 18

I don’t know about your toddlers and preschoolers, but my Pooky just LOVES to paint! Usually I just give her some washable paint and thick paper and let her go to town with it (while strapped in her high chair out of arm’s reach of anything). But this time I decided to get a little more intentional about it and explore mixing primary colors.

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 I came across the book Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh.

It is such a cute and simplified description of how the primary colors can be mixed to make secondary colors. I knew it was a quality book that would be great to use to explore mixing primary colors with young kids.

To start off our exploration of mixing primary colors, I read the book to Pooky a couple of times.

Then I let her “read” through the book on her own a few times.

Next, I set up her work station starting with just a dollop each of red and yellow paint.

Before giving her the paint, I showed her the pages in the book where the mouse who was covered in red paint splashed around in the puddle of yellow paint which mixed it together and turned it orange.

Then I gave her the materials and asked her to mix the red and yellow together to make orange. I demonstrated a bit to show her what I meant by mixing the colors.

She immediately caught on and was excited to see it make orange.

It wasn’t long before she filled her page with the color!

We repeated the process with the colors yellow and blue.

We talked about what was happening to the colors as she mixed them.

We referred back to the book each time we switched to different primary colors to see what new color they would make.

 Pooky really seemed to enjoy this activity!

(I’m sure your little ones would too.)

I don’t know how much Pooky internalized, but she had fun with the process.

(And since we used washable paint, she cleaned up pretty easily.)

Ever since doing this activity, Pooky is constantly curious about what new color can be made by mixing two other colors.

Another way we’ve been studying color is with our Rainbow activities including this Rainbow Ice Sensory Sink.

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