Learning to recognize and play with colors is usually more fun for kids because it’s at least a little messy!

Here are some ideas to try this weekend. Remember to cover your work table with an old plastic table cloth or cut up shower curtain to protect the surface.

Make a Rainbow

Take a sheet of paper, and moisten it by spraying water. Ask your child to paint arcs in red, blue and yellow using a paintbrush. Leave some space between the arcs of color. The colors will begin running into each other creating new shades. Explain the concept of secondary colors - how they are formed when certain primary colors mix together.

• Red and yellow gives you orange
• Blue and yellow gives you green
• Blue and red gives you purple

Mobile Colored Fish

Now that she has the basic concept in place, let her mix purple, green and orange by mixing the primary colors in separate bowls. Ask her to paint across a sheet of thick paper in waves or arcs. Once the paint is dry, turn the paper over, draw a simple fish shape and cut out. Your child can decorate with sequins and glitter. Let her make an eye, and cut out extra pieces of the sheet for fins. Punch two holes right at the top of the fish’ s body, tie a string and hang from the ceiling in her room.

Pretty and Pink

Give your child red and white paint in two bowls, and an empty bowl to mix. Let her mix a small dab of red with some white paint to create the color pink.

Ink Blots

Take a thick sheet of paper, and make a fold down the middle. Let her drop a blob of thick paint in two different colors on one side of the sheet. Choose contrast colors like black and white, red and yellow. Now fold the sheet of paper, and then open up again. The colors would have mixed, creating an abstract painting!

Food Color Mix

Take piece of blotting paper, and cover the mouth of a glass with it. Secure with a rubber band. Moisten the paper by putting a few drops of water on it. Use an ink dropper or an old dropper from your child’s medicine bottle to drop a few drops of different food colors. Ask your child to observe what happens as they begin to spread and blend into each other.

Marker Mix

For another blotting paper idea, draw arcs on a sheet with washable markers in 3 colors. Take an ink dropper and put a few drops of water on each color. Let the mixing magic begin!

Black and White Drama

Take a plastic squeeze bottle, and fill with soap flake finger paint. Let your child squeeze out patterns on thick black paper.

Take Out Treat

Put a few blobs of finger paint in a divider tray, and ask your child to mix as many colors as she wants to. Give her a colored take out container, and let her dab little blobs paint on the container with her finger tips to decorate it.

Delicious Color Mix

Mix a quarter cup of milk with 2 cups of sugar to make frosting. Pour into three bowls and add red, yellow and green food coloring to each bowl. Let your child mix the frosting on the plate to see what happens when colors mix. This is one art project you don’t have to store or throw away – let her spread the colored frosting on crackers! Voila! A snack!

Have fun!