Color Fun x2

Playing with food coloring and water can be a fun way to learn about the primary and secondary colors. It's fun to mix and see what you create. 

We started with clear containers so everyone could see what was happening and added red, yellow, and blue food coloring to the water. I grabbed a few extra containers to do the mixing.  

I then let the kids decide what two colors they wanted to mix together and let them see what color it made. Before they could mix the colors they had to tell me what color they thought they were going to make. It didn't matter if their guess what right or wrong. They then mixed and played. 

As you are mixing make sure you are talking about what they are seeing and doing. It would also be fun to put it in a little science journal. They don't have to be able to write, just use crayons and show what how they made the colors.

When we were done with this they still wanted to play with mixing colors so we got out the cornstarch and headed outside to paint the sidewalk. 

This is quickly becoming one of our favorite messy projects. It's fairly cheep and very easy to clean up. We made sidewalk paint out of cornstarch, water and food coloring.

I like to use either small yogurt cups that I have saved or my cupcake pan for this activity. I felt that they would be able to mix the colors easier if the colors were close together. I just filled each circle with cornstarch, it was just a couple table spoons for each circle. Then add water. It will be difficult to stir at first but the more you add the more paint-like it will become. 

Then add your colors. When we've done this in the past I've mixed the colors for them but this time the goal was for them to see what colors they could make so they just got the primary colors and white. 

We tried mixing the colors on the sidewalk as we painted, but that didn't work. The colors don't mix very well. They just blob together. It still looks really cool, just not what we were going for. 

They then grabbed spoons and began mixing the colors right in the pan. They had so much fun creating colors. The cupcake pan allowed them to mix as many colors as they wanted together because they had the extra empty ones. My son was excited to see what happened when he added white to the colors he had created. 

Clean up for this project is so easy!!! All you need is a hose. We like to let the sidewalk paint dry and use a tooth pick to practice writing our names or letters, just another simple extension activity.


By the time kids are in second grade they should know what colors they will get when they mix the primary colors together. This activity is fun for everyone though.