Colour mixing with kids

Over the next few weeks I will be teaching art and crafts at a summer school here in Bulgaria. The groups are mixed ages and abilities (in both art and speaking English), and fairly rebellious, so it will be a challenge to find activities that suit everyone.

One of the best things I've tried is the no-mess painting idea that I've seen recommended for very young children. Actually, this didn't hold the attention of my baby class, but the older kids (aged 10ish) really enjoyed it. I think this was because we could discuss the principles of colour mixing at the same time, something only a few knew much about. We looked at an image of a rainbow, and then I put two primary colours each in clear freezer bags and asked the children to guess which colour they would make when mixed. Then they tried it out, and we organised them in the window in rainbow order. Hopefully they will now remember how to make each secondary colour. And brown of course, when mixing paints on paper we also made a lot of brown.