We like to call this active the walking rainbow. It is such a fun science and art activity that will teach your little all about primary and secondary colors. It’s easy and cheap to set up too! With a little patience you will have a rainbow walking in no time!
What You Need:
*Six clear plastic or glass cups
*Water
*Red, Yellow, and Blue food coloring
*6 Paper towels
*Tray
*(optional) red, yellow, blue, purple and orange paper
*(optional) red, yellow, and blue crayons or markers
Step 1: Fill 3 cups with water and place 2-3 drops of red food coloring in one, blue in another, and yellow in the last. Leave 3 cups empty. Arrange cups in a circle on a tray, alternating filled cup, empty cup, filled cup, empty cup. . .
Step 2: Roll each paper towel into a long tube. Place one end of a paper towel into a cup filled with colored water and the other end into the empty cup next to it. Place the end of another paper towel into that empty cup and the other end into the next cup filled with water. Continue with all paper towels. Each cup should have 2 paper towel ends in it.
Step 3: Wait for your rainbow to start “walking”. This could take up to 2 days. In the meantime, make a hypothesis or prediction as to what you think will happen. Discuss primary colors (red, blue and yellow) and how they are used to make secondary colors (green and purple).
Step 4: (Optional) Use pieces of red, blue and yellow construction paper to “label” your red, blue and yellow cups.
Step 5: Next, give your little a piece of orange and green construction paper. Ask them to place those pieces next to the cups where they think those colors will show up. If they aren’t sure or are having trouble, prompt them to do a little experimenting with markers, crayons or dot markers.
Miss 4 mixed the primary colors yellow and blue (she could see that they yellow water was going to “walk” to the blue water) with her dot markers. To her delight, she discovered that the result was green! She excitedly placed the piece of green construction paper next to the empty cup between blue and yellow.
Next, she experimented with a yellow and a red crayon. She discovered, that when combined, they created orange! Proudly, she placed the piece of orange construction paper next to the empty cup between red and yellow.
Lastly, she used red and blue crayons to create purple. She correctly placed the piece of purple construction paper next to the empty cup between red and blue.
Now all cups were “labeled” with a piece of colored construction paper. We placed question marks on the green, orange, and purple paper, so we would know that they were just our predictions. We had to wait and see if our predictions were correct.
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| We lost our piece of purple paper, so had to use a purple crayon in its place. |
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