Colors and Science for Kids: Activities for Kids

Learning about colors can be fun with these Colors and Science for Kids: Activities for Kids .

Our Inspiration

Just like many other families across the country, we have become enamored with Herve Tullet’s interactive and whimsical books, especially Press Here.  When we cam across his newest book, Mix it Up,  while at our favorite bookstore, we just had to bring it home with us.

Tullet’s book requires the reader to interact with the text and illustrations through color mixing.  My little guy had a hard time explaining color relationships to me, so I got to thinking how I could make this color exploration into a fun science project.

Materials

Baking soda, vinegar, ice cube trays, 2 plastic dropper bottles, food coloring (and a TON of paper towels)

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Procedures

In order to add color exploration into our experiment, we started with a few drops of red and blue food coloring in small bottles of vinegar.  Using a dropper, we studied how the red vinegar interacted with the baking soda (spoiler alert:  lots of fizzing!).  After filling about six or seven compartments of the ice cube tray with a red vinegar/baking soda mixture, we repeated the process with the blue vinegar, careful to only use the remaining dry baking soda sections.

Once the tray was completely filled with either a red or blue vinegar/baking soda mixture, we talked about what would happen if we mixed red and blue together.  Since my little guy’s response was “I don’t know,” we worked together to figure it out.  Once we started putting some heavy handed red drops into the blue vinegar/baking soda mixtures, my little guy had his eureka moment.  A dark purple was created in half of the ice tray sections.  After repeating the procedure with a very light squeeze of the blue vinegar, our conclusions were confirmed.

Discoveries

Over the next twenty minutes we experimented with the other primary colors, learning that red and yellow make orange and blue and yellow yield green.  But that wasn’t the only thing that my little guy learned.  He also discovered that being neat and organized with the vinegar dropper wasn’t as fun as pouring the vinegar into the tray of baking soda–and that it was EVEN MORE fun to drop baking soda into the bottles of colored vinegar.

I also learned that even though my kitchen ended up being a messy (yet colorful) disaster, we had a blast learning together and enjoyed a rare special moment since his little brother has been around.  It is difficult for me to set aside special time to have with each one of them, and this activity encouraged me to have more “Mommy & Son” dates.

When we go to pull Mix it Up from the shelf along with our other favorites, my little man reminds me that we are going to read all about how to make purple, green, and yellow.  Now I just need to figure out a fun way to explain to him how we can lighten or darken a color that won’t completely destroy my house!

What are some fun ways you teach your kids about colors?

If you like this activity, check out all of It Is a Keeper’s kid’s activities, projects and ideas.

For more recipe inspiration, be sure to check out these pages on It is a Keeper:

• Easy Crock Pot Recipes
• 70+ Quick Dinner Ideas