STEM Educator Preparation
Remember the excitement of spending time exploring color? Learning the names of the colors around you and discovering that you could make new colors by mixing paints?
These hands-on activities will help you
- Support children’s observations and thinking about color and shades of color.
- Plan for how children can document and represent their observation and ideas about color.
- Identify specific vocabulary to introduce and use in the context of the color explorations.
- Anticipate and address problems that might arise as children use the materials during exploration time.
In addition, we have provided some basic science concepts for your information and review.
Classroom Close-up
"We know how valuable hands-on experiences are for our students. As I experimented with the materials for this color unit, I relearned how important these experiences are for teachers as well. Doing this with fellow teachers was fun and informative and led to great discussions. If you don’t have a colleague to bounce ideas around with, get a friend to explore the materials with you. You won’t be sorry!"
—Caroline, preschool teacher
Activities
As you explore, we encourage you to reflect on how to best introduce and adapt these activity ideas to suit your students and your environment. The questions will help spark these reflections.
Indoor Color
What you need: a white ice cube tray, two colors of food coloring, two plastic bottles of water, a cup for clear water, and three plastic pipettes or eyedroppers.
Many Shades: Food Coloring
#1: Place a drop or two of one color of food coloring into a bottle of water. What happens? How does the color look as it begins to mix with the water? How does it look after a few drops? A few more? Shake the bottle so the food coloring mixes with the water. Continue to add that food coloring until the color in the bottle is fairly dark and intense.
Reflect: When you do this activity with your students, you could pre-mix the colored water or you could mix it with the children. What might the children gain from watching and talking about the mixing process?
#2: Pour colored water into one compartment at the end of the ice cube tray. Use a pipette to pick up a little bit of that colored water and drop it into the next compartment. Then use a fresh pipette to add a little clear water to that compartment. What happens to the color of the water?
#3. Continue to mix varying amounts of colored and clear water in the remaining compartments of the ice cube tray. Can you make two matching shades by adding colored and/or clear water to two adjoining compartments?
Reflect: How might you introduce children to the idea of making matching shades? Can you use the paint squares or objects in your space to start the conversation?
Mixing Colors: Food Coloring
#1. Rinse out your ice cube tray and mix up a second bottle of concentrated colored water using a different color. Fill two compartments of the ice cube tray with the two concentrated colors. Predict what color you will get when you mix the colors. Then, using two pipettes (one for each color), try mixing varying amounts of the two colors. What discoveries did you make?
#2. Use a pipette to add clear water to some of your blended colors. Experiment by filling the ice cube tray compartments with different colors and shades. Then, try making two of the colors the same by adjusting the amount of clear water and colored water.
Reflect: As you experiment, think of ways to help children get the most out of these explorations. For example:
- Would these activities be done best in a small group or whole group setting?
- How can children share what they have discovered with their classmates?
- What are some open-ended questions you can ask to engage children’s attention and focus it on the colors they are seeing?
Troubleshooting: What, if any, safety issues might you want to address?
Tempera Paint
You will need a few paper plates or sheets of paper, a paintbrush with a small tip (or a craft stick), two colors of paint plus white and black, and some scrap paper. For the first activity, “Many Shades,” you will need only one color paint, plus white and a tiny bit of black.
Many Shades: Paint
#1. Put a blob of one paint color and a separate blob of white paint on a paper plate. Using a paintbrush, mix a little of the white paint into the edges of the color paint. Mix in some more white, changing the shade. Create different shades of the color paint. Document the shades created by painting a streak of each on your scrap paper before mixing in more white.
Reflect: How is the experience of making shades of paint different from the experience of making shades of colored water? What conversation might you have with children about differences in the experiences? Is there a way to document the differences?
#2. On a second plate, put a blob of the same paint color and a very small blob of black. Mix a little of the black into the color paint. What do you notice? How is it different from mixing in white paint? What are some of the pros and cons of offering black as well as white paint when doing this activity with children?
Mixing Colors: Paint
Put a blob of two colors of paint (not white or black) on a paper plate. Use a brush or craft stick to blend the colors together. If you wish, add white and create different shades of the new color.
Reflect: How might you help children get the most out of this color-mixing activity?
- Would these activities be done best in a small group or whole group setting?
- What questions might you ask? (What colors did you use to get that color? Why do you think that happened when you mixed those colors together? Will the same thing happen if you mix two different colors?)
- How can children document and share what they have discovered?
- What are some essential words that will help children share their discoveries with others?
Sorting Colors
Grab a box of crayons (a 64-crayon assortment works well) and 5 or 6 clear plastic cups. With a fellow teacher or other partner, sort the crayons into 5 or 6 categories—you’ll have to negotiate on what the categories will be and which crayons belong in which group!
Reflect: How can you use the color names on the crayons to expand vocabulary and encourage creative color naming? How can you document the children’s decision-making process as they sort the crayons? How might you use the crayons in ways that highlight all the colors?
Science Concept: What is color?
To see anything, there has to be light. Light travels from a source in waves. Different colors of light have different wavelengths. White light includes all the wavelengths. When light hits an object, some of the wavelengths of light are absorbed by the object and others are reflected or “bounce back.” We see an object as a certain color because of the wavelengths that the object is bouncing back. For example, a yellow wall looks yellow because the wall bounces back more of the yellow light than the light of other colors.
Outdoor Color
#1. Head outdoors with color paddles and/or sheets of colored acetate—a stiff, sturdy plastic. (This works best on a sunny day.) Go to the area where you will have children explore and take a look around. What colorful objects catch your eye? Are there any colors that seem to jump out more than others? Would you want to direct the children to these colors, or others that they would have to look more closely to find?
Reflect: What safety issues do you need to consider when children are exploring outside? Will they be near traffic? Are there poisonous plants in the area? What are other potential hazards?
#2. Find an area where there is lots of bright color—it could be a flower patch or a wall mural. Look at the scene through one of the color paddles or acetate sheets. Then look through a different color. How does the scene change? Try looking through two colors at the same time. What do you notice? What do you think is happening? Does this remind you of any of the activities you did while inside? Try the same thing but while looking at a white or light gray surface.
#3. Hold a sheet of colored acetate or a color paddle over a patch of ground, away from your face, so that the light shines through the colored plastic. What do you notice? How could you continue this exploration indoors?
Science Concept: How do we see color?
We see color because of a layer of cells at the back of our eyes called the retina. The retina has two types of cells that respond to light. Rod cells help us see shapes in dim light, and cone cells let us see color in brighter light. There are three types of cone cells. Each is sensitive to different wavelengths of light. When all our cone cells work, we can see many different colors. People with cone cells that do not work have various types of color blindness and cannot see all the differences among colors.
Classroom Close-up
"For Free Exploration, I set out water that I had colored blue and ice cube trays. I was certain the children would quickly grow tired of working with one color and move on. To my surprise, every child who chose the activity was completely engaged for an extended period of time. In addition, kids returned to this activity day after day. Zoe spent almost a half an hour making different shades of blue. Sasha then tried to match the shade of blue that she thought was the “prettiest.” I took notes as the kids discussed their colors, and I described out loud what I observed them doing. I asked them a few things like, “How did you make that very light blue?” but was careful not to grill them with too many questions.
An important note: This activity required a fair amount of monitoring. Once kids learned how to use the materials and understood the rules for using the materials, they did fine independently, but it took a few days for this to happen."
—Caroline, preschool teacher