This is such a simple activity that I think you might laugh at me! Some pipettes, a few cups of water with food colouring, tissue papers, kitchen paper towels and a small piece of soft foam packing sheet and the kids had so much fun. They spent I think about an hour just hooked on this activity of colour mixing with the additional challenge of doing it with pipettes.
Colour mixing for kids is always fun and I like to rotate the way we do it. The most obvious way is to do this with paint (though I’d have to admit we hardly do this!), but we’ve also done it –
- with salt when we made another batch of coloured salt for our sensory bin (all done in the ziploc bag!)
- when we did salt glue painting
- when we watched our ice alphabets melt and blend their colours together
- with coloured water and coloured shaving foam when we read Leo Lionni’s Little Blue and Little Yellow,
- with coloured water when my girl loved exploring shades of colour,
- in the process of making different coloured playdough
And so we started exploring with tissue paper first –
And I was really surprised that the colours on tissue paper turned out to be super vibrant!
When my boy was up from his nap, we tried it out with kitchen paper towels. I’ve done something similar to this when we read Mister Seahorse (way back when I hadn’t even discovered I was pregnant with my boy) but we didn’t do it with pippettes back then.
Anyway, this was my boy’s first time using pipettes and I had to explain to him how to use it a few times. He was intent at first with just squeezing the top bit pretty hard but sometimes forgot to check if his pipette was dipped in the water. And then there was the coordination bit to wait till his hand hovered over the kitchen paper towel before he pressed the pipette to release the water.
He caught on pretty fast and was very amazed at this new ‘toy’! π
And while he was figuring things out, my little girl was busy concentrating making piece after piece of coloured kitchen towels.
After that, I thought why not just let them explore with that piece of soft foam packing sheet which I actually was just intending to use it as a surface for them to colour the kitchen towels. And it turned out to be really quite a hit! They placed different colours on the packing sheet and the uneven surface made things more interesting too!
The colours really turned out so beautiful – and the best part about using this foam packing sheet? You can just wipe it clean and start over (which was what we did!)
Using the pipette really works his little fingers and also trains his concentration and he really enjoyed the activity.
He loved looking at the coloured water in the pipette and was really pleased with himself each time he succeeded (which was almost every time, but he was just amazed by the new instrument for painting I guess).
And this was how it looked before the colours started muddying up – pretty beautiful considering I only gave them blue, red and yellow. π
I was pretty surprised to find that the tissue paper kept the brilliant colours pretty well after drying! I haven’t yet found a use for these but I’m definitely hoarding them first. (I’m sure you’ve already noticed I’m a hoarder – who has soft foam packing sheets and sooo many tubs of empty yogurt containers!)
I hope you try out this simple activity and have a great week ahead!
~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you enjoyed this post, please share your thoughts in the comments or share the post with your friends by clicking on the social media buttons below. Do hop over to my Facebook page where I connect with my readers and I would love to have you following me on Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram too π
So beautiful yet so simple! I think you can use them as book covers if you paste them on a hard piece of paper. Btw, where can we get pipettes?
Simple Mum recently posted…My baby has HFMD!!
I got mine at Art Friend π Yes, I was thinking of using them as notebook covers… LOL.
Hi which art friend may i know? Thanks!
I’m sure u can get this at any branch, but I got mine from Clementi.
Thanks i called their office but ey dont seem to know what i want. I will go to their branch direct god willing tomorrow! Thanks for such a quick reply!
What a great idea! I might just let my kids try it and frame up the art pieces to be displayed as wall paintings. Thanks for sharing!
Ing recently posted…Messy Play with Ice and Food Colouring
Thanks! Have fun!
Really inspiring artistic activity. On the first sight, no one can believe it’s the work of a few year old. Really awesome.
Gautham Lurk recently posted…Bihar Teacher Eligibility Test 2013 BTET Admit Card http://www.Biharboard.net