Learn more about the primary colors.
Teach children about the color wheel through fun and interactive lessons that encourage creativity and exploration. Learning about the color wheel helps reinforce learning colors and how color combinations are mixed to create other colors. Color wheel projects encourage kids to experiment and take creative risks to understand colors and their combinations.
Finger Paint Fun
Give each child a sheet of finger paint paper and place a small amount of red, yellow and blue paint on the paper. Red, yellow and blue are the primary colors and the base of the color wheel. Mixing these three colors together can create all other colors. Have students experiment with the primary colors of finger paint and try to create as many color combinations as possible. Using finger paint allows children to enjoy a tactile art project and enforces learning of color mixing.
Color Wheel Plate
Create a color wheel with a paper plate. Display a color wheel for children to use as a guide for their color wheel plate. Use crayons or colored pencils to place the colors of the color wheel around the outside edge of the paper plate. In the middle of the plate draw a triangle connecting the primary colors, red, yellow and blue. Use the color wheel to encourage children to understand the color combinations of the primary colors when mixing paint to achieve other colors.
Primary Color Painting
Provide children with red, yellow and blue paint along with a large sheet of white paper and a selection of paintbrushes. Have children create a painting of their own design using only the primary colors. Encourage kids to combine colors to create other colors to use in their painting. Is it hard only using the primary colors to create the colors they want? Having to create other colors to create a finished artwork from the primary colors encourages kids to look at the color wheel and paint mixing in a new way.
Edible Color Wheel
Purchase enough vanilla frosting to use with children along with vanilla wafer cookies so there are enough for six cookies per child. Divide the frosting into three containers and mix one with red food coloring, the other with blue and the third container with yellow. Give each child six cookies and have them create a circle for their edible color wheel. Mix the frosting to create a color wheel that displays the primary colors along with the secondary colors. Allow kids to eat the cookies when the colors wheels are finished. An edible color wheel makes learning about color mixing lots of fun.
