Is learning colors top on your list or do you have a little learner who loves to explore colors? Here are some simple and fun ways to learn colors and explore color mixing through play. I like to do a lot of learning by doing activities. Hands-on play is wonderful for small children. Many of these color mixing activities include additional skills like math, fine motor, and practical life skills.

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What Is Color Mixing?

Color mixing is a fun way for kids to learn about colors, express their creativity, and develop a deeper understanding of the world around them. It’s also a great introduction to both art and basic science concepts related to color.

Color mixing is based around the colors, red, yellow and blue. These colors when mixed create all other colors, and are called the primary colors. The primary colors cannot be created by mixing other colors. These colors are like the building blocks for all other colors.

By mixing the primary colors together you get the secondary colors, which are green, orange and violet. For example:

  • Red + Blue = Purple
  • Red + Yellow = Orange
  • Blue + Yellow = Green

You can also introduce tertiary colors, which are created by mixing a primary color with a neighboring secondary color. For example, mixing red (a primary color) with orange (a secondary color) creates red-orange.

TIP: Use a printable color wheel as a visual aid to help kids understand how colors are related and how they can be mixed. The color wheel shows the relationships between primary, secondary, and tertiary colors.

Idea: Learn Colors With Paint Chips

Hooray for the local hardware store! I love these paint chip cards for learning colors. I simply picked out a red, yellow, orange, green, blue, and purple card and filled a bag with all sorts of colored objects.

I tried to find objects that represented the different shades of the colors too or even ones he had to pick out the predominant color.

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Why Do Art With Kids?

Children are naturally curious. They observe, explore, and imitate, trying to figure out how things work and how to control themselves and their environments. This freedom of exploration helps children form connections in their brains, it helps them learn—and it’s also fun!

Art projects are a natural activity to support this essential interaction with the world. Kids need the freedom to explore and experiment creatively.

Simple, easy art activities allow toddlers to preschoolers to practice many valuable skills for life and learning. These include the aesthetic, scientific, interpersonal, and practical interactions that can be discovered through the senses, intellect, and emotions.

For elementary and middle school grades, art is fantastic for relaxation and a good outlet to express themselves through creativity. From process art to exploring famous artists, our art activities are a valuable resource to have on hand!

Making and appreciating art involves emotional and mental faculties!

Creative work, whether making it, learning about it, or simply looking at it – offers a wide range of important experiences. In other words, it’s good for them!

Helpful Art Resources

Here are a few resources to help you introduce art more effectively to your kids or students and feel confident when presenting materials. You’ll find helpful free printables throughout.

Books About Color

Introducing books about color to preschoolers is a wonderful way to engage their imagination, foster language development, and teach them about the world around them. Here are eight colorful books that preschoolers may enjoy:

“Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle: This classic book features vibrant illustrations by Eric Carle and introduces various animals and colors in a repetitive and rhythmic format.

“The Day the Crayons Quit” by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers: This humorous book tells the story of a box of crayons that go on strike, each expressing its unique personality through letters to their owner. The illustrations are colorful and delightful.

“Mix It Up!” by Hervé Tullet: Hervé Tullet’s interactive book encourages preschoolers to explore colors by pressing, tilting, and shaking the pages to create different color combinations.

“Planting a Rainbow” by Lois Ehlert: In this book, vibrant illustrations depict a mother and child planting a garden with flowers of various colors. It’s a delightful exploration of colors and the lifecycle of plants.

“Elmer” by David McKee: “Elmer” is a story about a patchwork elephant who is different from the others. The book celebrates diversity and includes colorful illustrations that capture children’s attention.

“Mouse Paint” by Ellen Stoll Walsh: In this simple and engaging book, three white mice explore primary colors and discover the joy of mixing them to create new colors.

“A Color of His Own” by Leo Lionni: This charming story follows a chameleon’s journey to find a color of his own. Leo Lionni’s illustrations are both whimsical and captivating.

“Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes” by James Dean and Eric Litwin: Pete the Cat’s colorful adventure takes him on a journey through various color changes in his shoes. The repetitive and catchy text makes it a favorite among preschoolers.

Free Printable Color Mixing Projects!

Preschool Color Games

Start off the fun with one of these color games that are perfect for preschool and kindergarten.

Colors & Numbers Game

I filled a party store serving tray with colored items from our stash of this and that. I used a grid sheet from our worksheet stash and two dice. One had numbers 1-6, and one had colors!

Grab these free math grids here.

We played it like a game, taking turns to fill our grid and counting along the way. How many do you have left to fill? How many have you filled? This can easily be played with one person or by a few!

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Color Treasure Hunt

Grab a free scavenger hunt pack here…

Paint Stick Color Match with Clothespins

Again, we used the local hardware store for this one and picked up a paint stick on our way out! I simply measured and colored with our markers and then colored the clothespins with the same colors. Another great busy bag idea.

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Color Matching

Grab a bag of plastic eggs and a bag of pompoms and set up a simple color matching activity!

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Fun Color Mixing Activities For Preschoolers

Color Mixing With Playdough

Do you know you can mix colors with a batch of homemade playdough? Here’s our favorite no cook playdough recipe.

I thought we would give our hand muscles a bit of a workout and mix our own colors to play with. First, I made a big batch of playdough, and then we used food coloring to make the primary colors.

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Once we made the primary colors, we mixed chunks of each together to make the secondary colors.

Alternatively, provide primary colored playdough (red, blue, and yellow) and encourage kids to mix them to create new colors. Discuss the results and explore the color wheel.

Check out some of our favorite homemade playdough recipes

Color Mixing with Water & Eyedroppers

Color mixing, fine motor skills, and water. We love this one! I set out 6 little dollar store bowls on a cookie sheet, and he helped me fill them with water.

He also helped add coloring to make the initial primary colors we needed, red, yellow, and blue. Then with his eyedropper, he mixed the secondary colors, orange, green, and purple by carefully dropping in the right colors to mix!

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Rainbow In A Bag

Make your own rainbow in a bag. Just a few simple paint supplies and then time for playful and colorful rainbow art for preschool and elementary kids!

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Color Wheel Painting

Paint a color wheel with homemade skittles paint and learn about how colors are organized into a color wheel.

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Color Mixing Chart

Use our printable color mixing chart to teach kids about primary colors and secondary colors. Practice color mixing with watercolors, and with a rainbow art activity.

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Rainbow Sensory Bottles

Create sensory bottles filled with liquids of different colors. Children can shake the bottles and observe how the colors mix and blend. See our list of easy to make sensory bottles.

Watercolor Mixing

Use watercolors to let children experiment with mixing different colors on paper. Discuss the outcomes and create beautiful paintings.

Magic Milk Color Explosion

Fill a tray with milk and add drops of different colored food coloring. Use a cotton swab dipped in dish soap to touch the milk and watch the colors explode.

magic milk experiment with food coloringPin

Colorful Ice Cubes

Freeze water with various colored ice cubes. Let children play with the ice cubes as they melt and mix colors on a tray.

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Ice Cube Painting

Tissue Paper Collage

Provide preschoolers with colored tissue paper squares. Have them layer and overlap the tissue paper to create new colors on a piece of paper.

Color Mixing in a Bag

Seal different colored paint in separate plastic bags. Allow children to mix the colors by squishing and manipulating the bags.

Colorful Bubble Wrap Stamping

Dip bubble wrap into different colored paints and let children stamp it onto paper to create a colorful print.

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Bubble Wrap Prints

Outdoor Spray Painting

Fill spray bottles with diluted paint in various colors. Let children spray the paint onto large sheets of paper outdoors.

Colorful Baking Soda and Vinegar Reaction

Mix baking soda with colored water and drop vinegar onto the baking soda. Observe the colorful fizzing reaction.

Check out our list of baking soda and vinegar experiments for fun ways to set this up.

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Color Sorting and Mixing Trays

Provide trays with different compartments filled with colored items (buttons, beads, pom-poms). Encourage sorting and mixing.

Color Mixing with Light

Use flashlights or colored cellophane to explore how different colors of light mix and create new colors on a wall or surface.

Colored Rice Sensory Bin

Dye rice in different colors and place it in a sensory bin. Add scoops and containers for children to mix and explore. Check out these rice sensory bin ideas!

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More Fun With Color

Printable Preschool Pack

Get ready to explore this year with our growing Preschool STEM Bundle! Or grab the individual packs.

What’s Included:

There are ten fun preschool themes to get you started. This is an ” I can explore” series! You’ll find both seasonal and non-seasonal themes appropriate to preschool learning throughout the year.

Each unit contains approximately 15 activities, with instructions and templates as needed. Hands-on activities are provided to keep it fun and exciting. This includes sensory bins, experiments, games, and more! Easy supplies keep it low cost, and book suggestions add the learning time.

 

18 Comments

  1. These are fun! We made play dough monsters last week and explored color changes as well. I love your paint chip sorting boards and the clothespin matching game!

  2. Life is so colorful!! I love how bright these pictures are…who wouldn’t want to learn colors!! I pinned this to my (CarlaINHouston) Awesome Preschool board…thanks so much for sharing!!

  3. Wow, so colorful and fun. I really enjoyed this post. The paint chip cards are genius and so simple. My son would love the grid sheets. So many wonderful ideas. Thank you for sharing on our page. Pinned!

  4. Glad you liked it! Thanks for pinning. My son definitely enjoyed all of these! Hope you get to try one or two of them.

  5. Awesome! We love color. AND using the paint chip cards! My father worked for a printer that printed those, so hey, take all you want, you’re securing JOBS! 🙂
    I pinned this to my Crafts board!

  6. Lovely list of activities. Thanks for linking this fun post to Tuesday Tots. Just letting you know I’m featuring it this week on Learn with Play at Home 🙂

  7. Cool stuff! Have tried some of these ideas with my boys and hope to share one of your posts on my parenting page on Facebook shortly at www.facebook.com/ConsciousParentingApproach – inviting you and your fans to come check us out! 🙂

  8. In the first activity you have colored blocks that link together. Do you know what they are called? I remember spending ages playing with them as a child and have been trying to find them for my son but can’t remember there name lol.

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