AUSTIN, Texas — Being a parent is always tough, but it seems even more difficult right now. Parents are having to entertain and educate their kids from home, and this is a project that does both!
Follow these simple steps to make teach your children color mixing and how water travels over time.
When doing this activity, talk to your kids about what they think will happen, which will introduce scientific theory and hypothesis. This is a way to teach about primary colors and what happens when you mix them.
It will also teach children a little bit of patience. It takes awhile for the water to travel and the colors to mix.
The experiment uses items you probably have in your home and are affordable.
Here's what you need:
- Red, yellow and blue food coloring
- Water
- Six clear cups (or mason jars)
- Paper towels
Step One:
Put three drops of red food coloring in one cup. Then, in another cup, put three drops of yellow food coloring. Finally, put three drops of blue food coloring in a third cup.
Step Two:
Pour water in the three cups that have food coloring. Only the three cups that have food coloring. There will be three empty cups. Use this as an opportunity to teach math.
Example: If there are six cups and three have food coloring and water, how many cups are empty?
Step Three:
Set your cups in a circle. There should be an empty cup between each of the food coloring/water cups.
Step Four:
Fold your paper towels hot dog style, place one end in a food coloring cup and one end in an empty cup, all the way around the circle. The paper towels will be the highway for the water travel on.
Step Five:
Show off that patience! If the water is the car and the paper towel is the highway, consider the paper towel to be Interstate 35 (that's how slow it moves). It takes hours for the water to completely travel. So step away and come back ... or talk about the last time you traveled and where you went. We waited to check on it until the next day.
Step Six:
Check out the rainbow you created! Also notice that the empty cups now have water in them.
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