primary colours | Today We Did

Primary colours on paper towel.

We were talking about primary colours yesterday, and I thought we could try a little experiment with paper towel.

A and I made some coloured spots with markers on paper towel and placed it in water to see what would happen. As the paper towel sucked up the water, it took the colours with it, making them rise up the paper towel. A was amazed and excited by this.

Colours rising up the paper towel.

A colouring in her spots.

A used markers to make more coloured spots on another piece of paper towel and placed it in some water on a plate. She let the paper towel lay flat, rather than upright. The colours spread out on the paper towel as the water was absorbed.

The colours spreading out.

We also tried drawing the primary colours on top of each other before placing the paper towel in the water. The yellow rose up into the red, then both of them into the blue. Up went the water, and up went the colours, mixing together to make some orange, and purple and brown.

The colours stacked on top of each other.

The colours rising into each other.

This was fun and easy, and I loved watching A’s eyes light up when she saw what was happening.

Food colouring.

A and I got talking about colours today, and how some colours can be mixed with others to make new colours. We spoke about the three primary colours, red, blue and yellow. I asked A what she thought would happen if we mixed two of the primary colours together. She wasn’t sure, so we went out to the kitchen and did a little experiment.

We used food colouring in water. I filled three small cups with water, and then let A use some plastic pipettes to squeeze some food colouring into the water. She placed red food colouring into one cup, blue into one and yellow into one. She mixed the colour into the water with a spoon.

Adding blue to yellow to make green.

Then to the cup containing yellow water, she added some blue colouring. She mixed it up and was delighted to see that she had made green water.

Before squirting some yellow dye into the red cup, A accurately predicted that it would make orange. She was very pleased to see that it was indeed orange once she’d mixed it in.

Adding red food colouring to the blue water.

Finally, to the blue cup A added some red food colouring. She had no idea what colour these two would produce, though she hazarded a guess of pink. As these colours are so dark, it was a little hard to see what had happened, until A lifted some of the water out of the cup with the spoon. She broke out with a huge grin when she saw the water had turned purple. It was very exciting for her.

This was a very quick and easy way of showing A how the primary colours mix to make the secondary colours. And it was fun 🙂