Color Mixing: Making a Chem Lab in the Kitchen

Fun Project to Do With Kids

Here’s a quick way to make your employer’s kitchen into a junior chemistry lab. Provide containers of various sizes, bottles of food coloring, and various “lab” implements such as eye droppers, turkey basters, spoons, measuring cups. Before turning the kids loose in Chemistry 101, though, be sure to explain that it only takes a drop or two of food coloring to do the job at hand.

Young kids will simply enjoy making colors and pouring colored liquid from container to container. Depending on the child’s age and abilities, you can also use the activity as an opportunity to explain the primary colors and how to use red, yellow, and blue to make other colors. Help them make purple from mixing blue and red, make green by mixing yellow and blue, and make orange from mixing red and yellow.

Use color mixing as a way to teach kids about measurements. Help them learn how many ounces are in a cup. Help older kids make a “lab notebook” and record what happens when you mix twice as much red as blue to make purple.

You Will Need:

Water
Food Coloring
Containers
Eye Dropper
Turkey Baster
Spoons
Measuring Cups

References:

Photos from storiesandchildren.com and itallstartedwithpaint.com 

365 TV-Free Activities You Can Do with Your Child (365 Activities):