We made a
color wheel!
The first thing we did was talk about the colors in a rainbow. I pulled out the mystery bag (more about that later) and we played with the items within by sorting and discussing what we found. With each color we discovered, I would name it as a primary color or a secondary color. Sometimes I would describe two colors as being complimentary if they were. When it became art time, we gathered at the art table and got to painting.
We began with primary colors and then we worked on secondary colors. We worked with one sheet of paper between two children. Each child used a different primary color to paint with. As they painted and their brushes mingled their colors began to blend and change. The expressions on their faces were priceless!
Once the papers were all dry. I pulled out our thrifted lazy-susan and made a circle template. Having completely forgotten how to divide a circle into sixths I finally settled on folding the circle into quarters then opening it into a half. From there I folded one side of the half circle in towards the center then the other side over that, kind of like when you are folding paper to make a snowflake. Once opened, the circle showed six parts. I cut our the parts and used those as templates for the colors on the color wheel.
Cut a large-enough sheet of clear contact paper for your soon-to-be circle and peel backing paper off. Place contact paper sticky side up and place your red triangle on top. Continue connecting your triangles until you have a circle; make sure yo place your triangles in color-wheel order. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple and back to Red. My circle was a little short so I cut some more red and layered it down.
Once your color-wheel is complete, add another sheet of clear contact paper over the top of your wheel and tape down onto the lazy-susan using loops of masking tape. Using a lazy-susan will turn your wheel into a game, you of course, do not need one.
To make a color game, I filled a shallow basket with items in colors on our color wheel and put out a small handmade dice with all the colors on it. The children took turns rolling, selecting, and placing.
I also left it all out on a table and let the children play with it as they wished. From simply turning the wheel to make all the items fly off to playing the game as is or to making up their own game, it was quite a hit!
