This lesson I teach the Kindergarteners about primary and secondary colors. We use just red yellow & blue and mix our secondary colors.
Materials: tempera paint (red, yellow,blue & white),
paper plates and small paint trays or Dixie cups (if you use Dixie cups you’ll need popsicle sticks for mixing),
cut rectangle poster board (this year I used lined poster board & cut it so there were 6 perfect sections on each paper),
paper towel for each student.
I have done this by squeezing primaries onto a paper plate and going step by step through the color wheel, but it’s a lot of directions for the little ones to follow along with. Over the years I’ve figured out how to keep it simple for them.
Prepping this lesson takes a bit, but it makes the lesson go smoothly.
I put Primary colors on plates for the students to share. I try to split the kids into groups of 3, but its not necessary.
I squeeze the 2 primaries on to small paint trays (I use cup lids) for each secondary that needs to be mixed.**I add a drop of white into the trays for purple, otherwise it comes out really dark. Each group of 3 students gets 3 trays, one of each secondary to mix.
We use 1 finger and dip into red and paint out red rainbow stripe. We wipe our finger on our paper towel after each color.
Then 1 student for each group gets to mix the tray with yellow & red. Then everyone can paint their orange rainbow stripe.
Then on to yellow, green, blue, then purple.
I make sure there are enough of the trays of secondary colors so each student gets a chance to mix. This is a fun messy project! Its really cute how excited they get making new colors.
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-Art Teacher in LA
www.ViridianArt.com