Color Theory: Colored Water

Ages 3-5
Identifying and mixing all the colors of the rainbow with food coloring and water.

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Objective:

• Students will identify the primary colors (red, yellow, blue).
• Students will identify the secondary colors (orange, purple, green)
• Students will be able to mix all the secondary colors using the primaries.
• Students will be able to mix brown using complementary colors (blue+orange, green+red, yellow+orange)

Key Terms

• Primary: colors that are used to make all other colors (red, yellow, blue)
  
• Secondary: colors made from mixing 2 primaries (orange, green, purple)
  
• Neutral: somewhere between two extremes; in art: muddy earthy colors ​
  
  

Materials:

• 9 water bottles + 1 more per child
• Funnels
• Food coloring (red, yellow, blue)
• age-appropriate text on color theory (Ex: Mouse Paint, How the Crayons Saved the Rainbow)

Story:

• Read chosen color theory book
• Have children identify all the colors on the pages while reading

Activity: Mixing all the colors of the rainbow with colored water

• Discuss how some colors can’t be mixed - the primary colors. They have to be found in nature, and they can be used to make all of the other colors
• Start with 6 empty water bottles (preferably wide, stable ones with wide caps, like gatorade).
• Have children help pour water into 3 of the bottle, until they are almost full.
• Drop primary colored food coloring into the 3 full bottles, screw on cap and have students shake to mix.
• Ask students what all the colors of the rainbow are, and which ones we’re missing (green, purple and orange, the secondary colors).
• Use a funnel pour the primary colors into 3 new bottles to create the secondary colors
• Ask students if they know how to make brown. Say there a lot of different ways, you just need complimentary colors. Split water bottles into complementary pairs (green+red, yellow+purple, blue+orange).
• Pour some of each pair into new bottles to create 3 different bottles of brown water. (**food coloring is not always truly primary, so you may need to adjust. Have students help with this process)
• Review the ways that colors are categorized
  • Primary: colors that have to be found in nature, that can’t be mixed. Primary means first, they’re the first colors you need to mix all the others.  Red, yellow, blue
  • Secondary: Colors that come from mixing 2 primary colors. Secondary means it comes second. It’s the second set of colors you get from mixing the primaries. Orange, green, purple
  • Complimentary: Colors that are opposites. Together, they make brown.
• Free color exploration time: Provide students with their own water bottle and allow them to mix any of the colors they like, or try to mix a color we haven’t made yet.
• Clean up