Colour mixing

        

We have been learning about colour mixing recently so I thought it would be a good idea to do a little experiment about colour mixing. I have seen this experiment quite a lot of times on various websites on the internet and was intrigued to see for myself how it worked. It is a simple experiment to set up and uses everyday items from around the home. 

                   

First I got 6 glasses and gave D the job of pouring water into 4 of them.

        

Then, we mixed some liquid water colour into the 4 water-filled glasses, leaving an empty glass in between them. Finally, we took some kitchen paper, halved it and folded each piece a few times so it became a thin strip. We placed half the paper strips into the coloured water and half into the empty glass.

        

Then it was just a question of waiting! You can just see the coloured water start to soak up the paper strip and transfer to the empty glass. The liquid is able to do this via capillary action.

        

This experiment takes a very long time. After a few hours it looked like this.

        

By the end of the day the middle cups were almost full. 

This has been an excellent learning activity and D keeps talking about how blue and yellow make green and yellow and red make orange. It's lovely to know that they've taken something in!