A new way to explore color mixing for kids -

Color mixing for kids has never been more exciting. With this color mixing activity kids use pipettes to make different shades of each color. Moreover, kids can mix all the different colors and explore all the fascinating new colors and shades that appear. Plus, they learn hands-on what a dilution series is and how it works.

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What you'll need to set up this color mixing for kids activity

The setup is relatively simple for this dilution and color mixing activity. You will need:

food colors or liquid water colors
pipettes
water
tray (to contain any spills)
clear or white plastic containers for color mixing

I used the plastic container our eggs come in for this color mixing activity. Alternatively, you could use a white ice cube tray instead or may be some other small containers you might have.

Color mixing activity

To get your child started fill all sections of your egg container or ice cube tray with water (about half way each well). Then add a few drops of different food or liquid water color to 3- 5 sections.

I suggest to supply your child with at least the three primary colors (red, yellow and blue) since all colors can be mixed from them.

Its probably a good idea to add yellow to two or three sections because somehow yellow is always very quickly used up and your child only has dark colors left.

Your child can now transfer a little bit of one color to a section with just water. The, he can add another color to the same well and discover what color he mixed. So

Dilution series activity

The setup for the dilution series activity is similar to the color mixing part. You fill all the wells in your container about half way with water.

Then add to 3 to 5 sections a few drops of food color or liquid water color. For this part, I added the three primary colors (red, yellow and blue) and also purple, green and orange to make the rainbow colors. However, you can use whatever colors your child likes and you have on hand.

Now, your child can transfer some color from one well to another with just water and mix a little bit with the pipette up and down. Then he can take from this same well a little bit of color and transfer it to the next well with just water in it and so on.

Your child ends up with a series of wells containing more and more diluted colors. This is great to discover the different shades of one color.

Obviously, your child can now try to mix the different shades of different colors and find out what new colors he can mix. This is often very nice because the colors are not that concentrated and new colors are easy to distinguish (like a dark green from a dark blue from a dark purple).