Mix primary colors to make secondary and tertiary colors with this fun and easy color wheel activity (printable included)!
This is a super fun, easy-to-set-up activity for children who are learning about colors. This hands-on lesson allows children to learn and explore primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. Great for a science lesson and/or an art project!
Supplies:
- food coloring (red, yellow, and blue)
- paper towels
- droppers (these color droppers would be great for younger kids)
- a cup/glass for water
- 3 containers/cups for food coloring
- toothpicks
- laminator (with laminating sheets) OR a page protector
- color wheel printable (download instructions below)
I originally made this printable in 2010. However, I have since updated and enhanced the file. Both the original and the new versions of the secondary color wheel are included along with a tertiary color wheel. Download instructions are below.
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Directions:
First, prepare the supplies for the child to use:
- Laminate the color wheel printable (download instructions above) or slide it into a page protector.
- Dilute the food coloring a bit.
- Lay out the supplies as shown below.
Then, provide the following instructions to the child:
1. Drop food coloring on the page. Using the dropper, place a drop of each color onto the matching dot on the paper (i.e. one yellow dropped on each yellow dot on the paper, blue dropped on each blue dot on paper… and so forth) until all of the dots are covered with the appropriate color.
Helpful Hint: Be sure to clean the dropper in the cup of water each time you switch colors. Or use a new one for each color.
2. Mix the drops of food coloring. Use the toothpick to mix the colors in each circle. Use a different toothpick for each circle.
Helpful Hint: We found that it works best if you turn the toothpick a bit on its side rather than trying to mix while holding the toothpick straight up.
3. Lay the paper towel over the food coloring. Once all the circles of color are mixed together so that you have six little blobs of color (one in each circle), place a paper towel over the paper.
4. Lift & discuss. Lift up the paper towel color wheel and discuss how each color was made!
5. Read about it! Check out some of the books below for supplemental reading about colors, color mixing, and the color wheel.
I got the idea for this color mixing activity from Itty Bitty Love.
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Rachel, have you been able to download the files?
Thanks! I was able to download these and am so excited to do this activity with my Littles! I appreciate your sharing the activity with us!
You are very welcome Rachel!
You are so welcome! Let me know how it goes with your class!
Thank you so much for this! It’s exactly what I needed and I’m very excited to use it with me class.
THANK YOU SOO MUCH for this wonderful post and the printables. Color wheel have always been cool but this beat sit all. I did this activity with your printable sand my kids just can’t have enough of it…. we’ve done it several times already for each of my lil ones 🙂 Not only that we just got MORE food coloring as they want to do it again. THANK YOU once again. I have posted it on my blog…. we did do it slightly differently as my kids wanted BRIGHT colors 🙂 You might enjoy this twist too…..
http://umamahlearningacademy.blogspot.ca/2012/09/color-wheel-activity-part-1.html
I found more tertiary color mixing printables like yours on another blog and will be posting about in our color wheel activity 2.
Thank you so much for your kind words Georgia!
I stumbled upon your blog and am in awe of all that your have created here! Thank you for sharing and good luck to you and your beautiful family!
This is a great idea! Seems like it would really help them “get it”, more than just discussing, or using crayons or markers. Thanks for all your great resources!
So very cool, my kids love art and messes! They’re going to love this.
Love the project and this is fun to make. Thanks for links above.
Thank you so much! It was a huge hit 🙂
Here’s the link, where I mentioned your site:
http://educationofours.blogspot.com/2010/12/fantastic-friday.html
I absolutely LOVE this idea. Both of my boys (1 and 4) loved it too. I blogged about it here:
http://mymontessorimoments.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/miy-color-wheel/
I did this yesterday with my 8 and 5 year old sons. They loved it! I didn’t have any way to laminate the color wheel page so I slipped them into a sheet protector. After doing the activity a few times they turned the sheet protector over to reveal the blank side of the paper. They they created their own colors and gave them names like sunset yellow or very berry blue. So fun! Thanks!
The children in my preschool class love this work and for some the challenge of getting just one drop on each spot is perfect. Thanks so much. your newest fan.
Thanks for sharing the original color wheel with us! I re-created the rest of the Color Wheels to use based on the original activities over at Itty Bitty Love. If any of you would like to download them, visit the Taylor’s Mark blog. Thanks for the great activity idea!
Thank you for this. Yes, I too love my Scotch Laminator. The Scotch brand also seems to be the best price for hot pockets as well! Staples was double the price and was not as thick… Have fun laminating!!! 🙂
This is a really nice idea, thanks, Karen
Sippy Cup Central Mom
TY for sharing! My son will love this! We already covered the color wheel but I think he could use a refresher on making secondary colors. This will be so much fun!
TY for sharing! My son will love this! We already covered the color wheel but I think he could use a refresher on making secondary colors. This will be so much fun!
That is too cool!
I saw this on itty bitty love too and thought, too bad she didn’t have the colorwheel printout! LOL! But you do, so awesome to share, I’m all over this one, thanks!
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What a wonderful resource. My little girl will get such a thrill out of doing this. Thank you so much for creating this and sharing it.
thanks for posting this.. I had the color wheel in my lesson plan for last week and we never got to it… this activity is much better than the one I had planned to do!!!
I really like this activity. Thanks for sharing your template.
Love your blog.
-Phyllis
I so missed at first that you had laminated the sheet before doing this, and I was wondering how you were mixing this all together.
I like this idea!
Lovely! Can I try this in my class? 🙂