Colour lab

 

I thought we could ccolour sprayontinue to explore colour as the children were so entranced with the colours mixing rather than dancing during the magic milk experiment.

 

I had intended on using the squirty bottles to make a mist for us to attempt to reflect light on and make rainbows but our inquisitive and curious scientists were so taken with the squirty bottles it seemed wrong not to let them freely explore colours using the sprays as they wished. So I added red, yellow and blue water to the bottles as well as the test tubes.

Daniel had to coordinate his movements and use his hand muscles to fill the test tube using the squirty bottle. He mixed yellow and blue and made green!
Daniel had to coordinate his movements and use his hand muscles to fill the test tube using the squirty bottle. He mixed yellow and blue and made green!

 

It was hard to make out the colours that were being mixed in the test tubes however,

“I made black!” – Natalie

So I fetched a big bit of paper for us to spray the colours on to.

“It’s not black it’s a bluey green!” – Natalie

“I made it orange by doing 2 colours at the same time!” – Gabi

“Look it’s changing red – it’s mixing orange!” – Belle

But the paper got soggy and absorbed the spilled water in the tray making the colours tricky to make out. So we added a shelf from the drying rack and it worked a treat!

We had to use our hand muscles and coordination to spray the colour out of the bottles and on to the paper or the tray. We made a range of colours and talked about what we had created. We remembered which colours we had added and attempted to remake purples, oranges and greens although often ended up with browns.

Sophie's report

Patrick and An were sure they had created more than just colours…

” I made dynamic soda! It powers rockets!! – Patrick

“It’s a samurai  colour!” “It’s sacorizing! (It’s like a decorated surprize!)” – An

“Look I made Bicarbonate Soda!!!”

We had to take turns for the bottles and work together, developing our social skills.

Yes! You CAN help me!” – An to Lauren

We also had to solve problems when things didn’t work as we’d hoped like the wee vapourizers being stiff, the bottles stopping working or when we set ourselves the challenge of filling the test tubes using the bottles. We compared amounts to see who had the most and the least, using lots of comparative language.

“I’ve got many!” – Adam

Some of the colours didn’t mix straight away so we had to solve the problem of how to get them to mix.

So we shook them (with the top covered of course!)

“Shake shake shake tomato!” sang Evie

Evie enjoyed mixing colours by shaking. She created a little song and wiggle dance to help mixing!
Evie enjoyed mixing colours by shaking. She created a little song and wiggle dance to help mixing!

The shaking (and singing!) did the trick and the colours mixed well.

"Look at my green!"
“Look at my green!”

 

I don’Thinking scientistt think we have exhausted the exploration of colour mixing. I think on Wed we shall revisit the learning and experience again but this time with coffee filters to see what happens to the colours with them.

And who knows maybe we’ll get on to rainbows, but then maybe we’ll explore another area altogether.

"Oh I made brown - do you think this would make a penny shiny?"
“Oh I made brown – do you think this would make a penny shiny?”

After all Patrick did mention the cleaning properties of Coke! Hmmmmm……

 

 

2 thoughts on “Colour lab”

  1. It’s great to see the children using their existing knowledge to further their understanding during these experiments!
    What wonderful vocabulary they are learning and using – so impressive!

  2. It really is impressive Jenna! Especially making up new words with definitions. Their vocabulary has expanded so well. (Did you know there is a connection between large vocabularies at age 5 and later school success?)
    I could not be more proud of our wee scientists.

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