Learning about color mixing is often a hands-on activity.
Color mixing can be fascinating to children, and there are many practical ways to explore the results of mixing two or more colors together. Start simply by enabling children to discover for themselves what happens when primary colors are mixed together before moving on to more complicated color concepts such as complementary colors. Prepare paints and materials in advance, cover work surfaces with newspaper and provide aprons because painting activities are often messy.
Primary and Secondary Colors
Start by teaching the three primary colors -- red, yellow and blue. Explain that these colors cannot be made by mixing any other colors together. Next, explore what happens when you mix two of these colors together: red and yellow make orange; red and blue make purple; blue and yellow make green. Give the child a paint palette and cups containing tempera paint in the three primary colors. Offer a separate brush for each color and clean water for washing the brushes. Have the child mix two of the colors together on the paint palette before applying them to paper.
Make a Color Wheel
Use a paper plate to make a color wheel to demonstrate how the primary and secondary colors relate to each other. Divide the plate into six sections. Have the child paint a red, yellow and blue section, leaving a space in between each one. Now have her mix the two primary colors each side of a space to make the secondary color that she needs to fill it.
Shades of Color
Shades of color are made by mixing colors in different quantities; if a little red paint is added to yellow, it makes light orange; if a lot of red paint is added, it makes dark orange. Mixing all of the colors together makes black. Adding white paint makes a color lighter. Colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel are called complementary colors. Mixing them together creates grays or browns.
Hands-on Color Mixing
For a hands-on approach, paint the child's hands with two different primary colors and let her make handprints on a large piece of paper. Then have her rub her hands together to mix the colors and make prints with the secondary color she has created. You could make a giant color wheel in this way with a handprint of the correct color in each section. Let her experiment with mixing complementary colors to make grays and browns or mixing colors that are next to each other on the color wheel to create different shades.
