This is the type of activity that you would definitely set up for outdoor play but we were able to enjoy our colored water play in our outdoor classroom…
At the colored water play station, the children found clear plastic cups, pipettes, and three clear jugs filled with colored water. We added red, blue, and yellow Sargent Art 22-6210 10-Count 4-Ounce Watercolor Magic to color the water…
The colored water was placed near our empty water table for the children to dump their excess water out as they went along and the process was left entirely open ended for the children to explore…
At first the children wanted to fill their cups with one color all the way to the top so it took a little bit of trial and error for the children to realize that if they would only fill their cup part of the way and then go to the next water dispenser to fill their cups up the rest of the way, they could mix the different colors…
As the children explored the different colors, they began to catch on to how they could make new colors. At first, the children wanted to use all three colors of water so we had lots of yellowish brown water…
But later the children began to be more intentional in their water color mixing and produced different shades of green, orange, blue, and purple…
The colored water play station stayed busy with children mixing colored water for about an hour. We had to refill the dispensers once and dump the excess water out of our water table along the way too. Â I have to say that this process really gave the children the opportunity to explore color-mixing like no other opportunity I have ever provided…
By the end of their time, the children were confidently choosing the color of water they wanted to make and knew exactly what colors to mix to get that color…
The children also spent time working together to help each other. When the water level got low, one child would hold the cup while the other children would tip the dispenser to help get the water to come out…
If you don’t want the children to mix the water in the dispensers, then keep the lids on. By the very end of our time, we took the lids off and the children mixed the water in the dispensers too so we no longer had pretty water to work with but another lesson learned by me and the kids!
Oh, and what happened as the children emptied their cups into the other water table, some of the children switched and played with the fish in the water table and some of the children chose to stay and continue mixing colors. One little girl made cup after cup of purple water to fill our empty fish aquarium with purple water…
As I mentioned earlier, this is most likely a process you would want to take outdoors because water will get on the floor and the children will overflow their cups at times. It didn’t take long for our children to learn to manage the flow of the water in the dispensers but throughout the process, we had quite a few overflows…
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Links to Grow On
Handprint Color Mixing by Teach Preschool
Mixing Colored Water (Small Amounts) by Teach Preschool
Simple Idea for Mixing Paint Colors by Teach Preschool