Unplugged Project--color

There is a website that hosts an "unplugged" project every week and this weeks project is color. We haven't participated in this before, but we had such fun joining in the Operation Playtime activities I thought we would join in this weekly fun also.I have seen this activity done for mess-free finger painting, but I thought it would also be a good way to show color mixing.

We started with the same base we use for homemade fingerpaint.

1/3 c. sugar

1 c. corn starch

4 c. water

Mix these ingredients together and then cook on low heat until thick. Stirring constantly.

Let cool.

When this was cool we divided this mixture into 3 bowls and added red, blue, and yellow food coloring.

mix, mix, mix

Mark finished off the mixing to make sure the colors were well blended.

I placed a big spoonful of each of the three colors into a ziplock bag. I then sealed the bag with packing tape (or you can use duct tape).

I showed the kids how to carefully blend the colors to make new colors. This kept them busy for a quite a while. (A very good thing.) It is a real neat feeling pushing the colors around in the bags.

Of course, it wouldn't be real fun if it didn't involve a little silliness.

We practiced writing letters and shapes in our paint. You can see above how cool the blending becomes after you work with it for a while. Our littlest learners also picked out and named colors as we did this activity.

Of course, if you are nine years old, and are really, really good at blending we discovered you get the color brown.

Hands on learning is definitely the best.

Make sure you go and visit all the great color activities at this weeks Unplugged website.