Last week I wrote about our investigation of fall leaves, as we collected, sorted, and preserved them. After observing some children take an interest in mixing paint colors, we decided to make our own paint colors using the colors of leaves we collected: red, green, yellow, brown and orange. Noticing that the colors of our leaves varied, we looked at paint samples and observed that there can be many shades of one color, ranging from light to dark. We also noticed that these paint samples had very unique and specific names. For example, we found the name “Loud Lime” to be very funny. When we asked the children why they thought this color was called loud lime, they agreed that limes are green and this color was bright and green like a lime. This sparked a great discussion of how words can be combined to describe something. Next we encouraged the children to mix various colors of paint to create their own special shade, with the intention that they would decide on their own creative name for their color.
Some children went into the mixing process with a desired color in mind, while others used trial and error to see what would transpire. During this time we asked the children questions such as, “What do you think would make this color lighter/darker?” (We provided white paint in addition to the fall colors). Ms. Harpole was present to encourage the children to describe their color choices in Spanish. Once the children were satisfied with their color, they painted a large color swatch and decided upon a name.
On Friday, PK students shared their colors and the mixing process with the JK and SK classes at our all school Morning Meeting. View the video below to see our unique colors and hear the color names we came up with! This study of color mixing provided children with the opportunity to develop, test, and evaluate a hypothesis. Perhaps a color did not come out the way the child anticipated or had hoped. Being able to evaluate their results, gave the child the choice of whether or not accept the results or adapt and continue to experiment. This was also a great experience in presenting our work to large audience.