Color Mixing

Activity Overview

This activity is aimed at exploring how we can manipulate materials, change those materials, and turn them into something new. The students will explore creating shades and tints of colors and will name these new creations. This ignites their creativity and allows them to use their growing vocabulary to describe what is before them and harness the feeling of each color. They will then have the opportunity to experiment and paint with the colors they have created.

What You Need

• Tempera paints: magenta, yellow, turquoise, black, and white

• Spoon

• Optional: popsicle sticks to mix colors

• Closable jars or containers for saving colors

• Masking tape for labelling containers

• Sharpie pen for labelling containers

• Paper

• Paintbrushes

• Cup of water

• Towel

Steps

1. Frame the activity by sharing with your student that they will be mixing colors and making new tints or shades that they will get to name.

2. Start with one color in a small jar and have them explore how they can change the tint or shade by adding either white or black. Place the base color in a container, and have them explore by adding the other color one spoon at a time.

3. Use one additional primary color to your mix to create a secondary color. For the best variety of colors, limit your mixing to two primary colors and white or black per jar. More than two primary colors will create a variety of darks which are also fun to explore with.

4. Once they create their colors, have your student ponder what they think the best name for that color would be. Model by being adventurous and using memory as a trigger for naming, for example, “Running in the Sunshine Yellow,” “When Tuba was a Puppy Brown,” “Last Night’s Spaghetti Red.”

Guiding Questions

• What does this color remind you of?

• Is this color light or dark?

• Does it have more of one color than another?

• What words could you use to describe color?

Extensions

• Use color swatches from a hardware or paint store and try to match the swatches with your new colors.

• Make a color chart to catalog your new collection by painting a swatch of color on paper and labeling each swatch with its custom name.

• Build a structure out of recycled materials and use your paint to bring it to life. Create colors for the new structure.

• Continue making more colors!