- 15 - 25 mins
- Fine motor, colour recognition, colour mixing experimentation
- Minimal mess
Pipette paintings are a fun way to get creative and introduce some colour mixing concepts with your little ones. During this experience your child will have fun exploring the art of colour mixing, whilst strengthening those tiny fine motor muscles in their hands, as well as have opportunities to engage with basic scientific concepts, such as hypothesizing, experimenting and concluding.
A great activity that’s super simple to set up and isn’t very messy either.
What you will need
- Pipettes (try using a medicine dropper)
- Food colouring
- Paper towel
- Water
- Paint Pots or containers
Activity steps
This activity is fairly easy to setup.
- Mix a few drops of food colouring with some water so that it creates a thin coloured liquid. Use primary colours (blue, yellow and red) to get the best colour mixing results.
- Layout your paper towel. It’s best to put something underneath to stop the colours seeping through. I also find holding the paper down with some weights is a good idea to stop the paper from shifting or blowing away.
- Using the pipette, suck up some liquid. Great for fine motor development and strength!
- Drop a few droplets on the paper towel and watch the colours be absorbed.
- Now grab a different colour and repeat.
- Observe the colours on the paper absorbing and blending together. This is a good time to explain how different colours mix together to make secondary colours.
Learning Outcomes
- Experimentation
- Colour recognition
- Colour exploration
- Hand-eye coordination
- Fine motor development
- Creative expression