The Art & Work of Creative Parenting: Watercolors
“Mandy, this is red…. Red, meet Mandy, your biggest fan.”
I like to allow children to completely explore a concept before they begin to create within the confines of it. When applied to learning about color, that theory notifies parents to make simple introductions.
Offering your child a pre-packaged kit of watercolors will certainly supply her with the tools for hours of fun and creativity. But I think there is a better, more organic way to introduce your 30 to 36 month-old to color learning.
Color Math.
Let’s start with an equation that boosts brain development and pumps up motor skills development: Water + Color = Learning.
Think that’s exciting? How ’bout this formula: Water + Color + One more Color = ANOTHER color!
When you show young child how to mix colors, she’s not only conducting an experiment to see what new colors result (a science lesson in itself!), she learns the important discipline of following a sequence, gets a good cause and effect lesson, and she strengthens her planning skills for future art projects. Once she finishes her investigation, she might want to create a work of art, or start all over again.
Gather :
- One clean eyedropper for each artist
- One clear or white ice cube tray for every two artists to share
- Food coloring in the primary colors: blue, red, and yellow
- White construction paper, or watercolor paper
- paint brushes, child-sized
Start by filling the ice cube trays with water (more than halfway, less than spillable). Add 3 or 4 drops of blue food coloring into one of the sections of of the tray. Choose another section in which to add 3 or 4 red drops. Choose one more section in which to add 3 or 4 yellow drops.
Next you’ll develop your child’s motor skills by teaching her how to squeeze the eyedropper, and use that new skill to mix new colors. Start with a bowl of clear water. And plenty of paper towels! Grabbing up the water, then releasing it in the right place is a complicated symphony of fine motor skills, aiming, and timing. A lot like playing in a real symphony. As you show her how it’s done, describe each step so that she can see and hear what’s happening.
Point out that you are:
- Pinching the soft bulb of the dropper,
- Then placing the tip in the water.
After that you will:
- Open your fingers, and
- See the water come up into the tube,
Next, it’s time to:
- Take the eyedropper out of the water, and
- Pinch the bulb again to get the water back out.
When your child finishes practicing with the bowl of clear water, she will complete this process with colored water. At that time, she’ll need to know to aim the dropper right before she squeezes the colored water out. And, it will actually be a little easier for your child to see the water enter the tube. But practicing with clear water one or two times can greatly reduce mistakes, therefore, frustration.
Now, it’s time to mix.
Ask your preschooler to:
- Choose a color water (red, blue or yellow) section of the ice cube tray, then
- Use the eyedropper to grab up some of the color water.
- Squeeze the color water back out of the tube, into a section that has clear water.
- Repeat, using one of the remaining colors, and aiming at the section the same section as in step 3.
- Describe what she sees.
Help your artist continue experimenting until she has combined all of the secondary colors (purple, orange, and green) from the primary colors of red, blue, and yellow.
Extension and follow-up activities.
A child who is interested in doing more with these newly “created” colors might enjoy painting with a brush onto thick paper, or she might like to use the dropper to spread color water onto thick paper.
Check back tomorrow for more of The Art and Work of Creative Parenting series.
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Carly Jennings | Cognitive Development | 
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