Colour Mixing with Recyclables

Today we are joining in the 31 Day Play Challenge by Adventures of Adam. We are playing with recyclables, but not just playing, doing a science AND art activity in one: colour mixing with recyclables! AND we did this outside, using the slide, such fun!

Firstly, I covered up the slide with a roll of BIG paper. Then my daughter(4.5 years) and her cousin(5 years) added drops of red, blue and yellow paint(primary colours) to the paper. (Please look past the no-shirts-photos, we are in the middle of summer here)

They were given different types of cardboard rolls, and given the instruction to roll it down the slide and try to roll it through ALL of the paint drops. (You can use kind of recyclables that can roll, eg. Bottle caps, pill holders etc.)

At the end of the slide we added a box in which the rolls came to a stop. There the kids investigated the rolls to see what colours they can find, and how it looked after rolling through the paint.

They rolled it a few times. Some of the paint drops were not in the direct line of the rolls, so that made it a bit of a challenge to try and estimate where to let the rolls go so it will to roll through ALL of the paint drops. Great problem solving opportunity! At the end, the paper looked like the picture below. We talked about what colours they see, and which colours were not originally there, thus secondary colours. If you look closely you will see some orange, green and purple shades.

And then, of course my sensory loving kiddo could not resist getting her hands dirty, so they both had a go at mixing all the colours by hand!

A fun experiment: mixing the colours, getting the whole body involved, and through this a lot of learning took place. The kids enjoyed it, and went straight into the pool to wash off!