Updated, originally published Jan. 2011
Preschool Color Activity – Discovering GREEN!
With a little food coloring, water play becomes a chance to discover color mixing. Being told that blue and yellow makes green is fine, but it’s so much more exciting for your child to discover this for themselves!
In order to make an activity like this last, I bring out interesting things to play with in the water little bits at a time. In this way the kids can enjoy playing while I get enough time to start making dinner.
This is what muffin tins are for…
In an attempt to head off a second bath time for the day I asked my boys, “How about playing with some water on the kitchen floor?” Muffin tins were sitting out still from a recent washing and inspiration struck.
We had a great time with these- first I let the boys put a couple drops of food coloring in some of the tins and then I added water and gave them suction devices. They didn’t need instruction to figure out what to do from there.
“Mama! Blue and yellow makes GREEN!”
Once all the cups (and the towel and the pants…) were green I added some dishsoap and straws so they could blow bubbles in the muffin tins.
This is similar to the bubble blowing I mentioned in my list of indoor preschool activities, somehow the muffin cups made it even more fun.
When they got bored with bubble blowing I added a marble and tongs.
And in the end it turned out clean up was even fun since it meant pouring green water down the bathtub!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
What a wonderful activity! And now I fully understand your comment about the extra bits of food coloring. It looks to me like you’re an outstanding improvisor, and your boys are clearly loving this activity.
this. is. awesome!! does the food coloring stain, I wonder? we’ve got a splat mat that will be perfect for underneath. F is too little but I is perfect and G will love showing her how to do it
I love how one activity morphs into another. As we all know, toddlers attention spans can be a little spastic; but I love how you incorporated many different activities and learning opportunities that all started from putting blue and yellow together to make green! I know my little guy will love this, as he LOVES water play. THANKS!!
Oh in honor of spring and the relative LACK of green around us right now, I think we will be doing this project during quiet time tomorrow! Perfect idea, since Ella recently has become very interested in color mixing (even though ultimately it all ends up brown!)
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