Colour Mixing Activity

Another wonderful activity that engages many children is the Montessori Colour Mixing Activity.

Materials:

• Paint tray (or ice cube tray)
• Food colouring (red, blue and yellow)
• Droppers

For this activity, I simply presented the tray of the three primary colours and demonstrated how I could make secondary colours by mixing.  I’m not sure she fully understood the lesson but she enjoyed using the dropper.  I suspect the more she does this and experiments with the colours, the more she’ll understand the concept.  For now, she is enjoying using the droppers and the different colours.

My main reason for doing this activity is because of Lady P’s fine motor skills.  She really struggles with the pincer grasp (my 15 month old has already mastered it) so I’m spending the next few weeks focussing on activities that will strengthen her hands.  So lots of play dough sessions 🙂

She needed a bit of practice using the dropper to suck up liquid but by the end, she was getting a lot better at it.  Also, the dropper encourages her to be very careful, and only squeeze out a few drops at at time.  This requires a lot of concentration (concentration means momentary quiet in my house :)).