Rainbow Play Dough Color Mixing

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Learning the color wheel and color mixing is a timeless art lesson. Today I have a fun spin on it for little ones, play dough color mixing!  Back in my former career, I was a Home Economics teacher. I used to do lessons on the color wheel with my interior design students. We did it with frosting on vanilla wafers. It was always one of my students’ favorite lessons!

This lesson is a lot like that one.  It is still a fun sensory way to teach the color wheel, but without eating and sugar. (Some days we just really do not need the extra load of sugar.) This is a perfect way to introduce color mixing to preschoolers!!

Today’s post is part of the Weekly Virtual Book Club for Kids series. The book of the week is A Rainbow of My Own by Don Freeman. Learn more about how to follow along with the series at the end of the post.

How To Do the Play Dough Color Mixing Activity

Print out my color wheel. I laminated it to make it usable with the play dough. If you don’t have a laminator, you can use sheet protectors, too.

Then you need some play dough, of course! If you buy play dough, your colors will definitely be more vibrant than making it. I kinda love homemade play dough sometimes, though. You can make a huge quantity for pennies.

I used a basic no-cook play dough recipes for this activity.

Basic No-Cook Play Dough Recipe

5 c. Flour
2 c. Salt
2 Tbsp Oil
2 c. Cold Water
Food Coloring or Liquid Watercolor

Mix the dough in a large bowl. You may need to adjust the flour or water quantity based on your climate.

Divide the play dough into three ziplock bags and then add coloring.

Seal the bags and let your kids mix. You’ll have to help, too. . . Their little hands get tired. 🙂

Once you have the primary colors all mixed, you can start mixing secondary colors.

Purple ended up looking more like gray, but despite that, we had so much fun with this.

See More of my Rainbow Activities:

Rainbow Woven Lantern
Rainbow Experiments
Color Mixing with Light
Q-Tip Rainbow Craft
Color Mixing in Bubble Wrap
Teddy Bear Color Sorting

This post is part of the Weekly Virtual Book Club for Kids series. Follow along by joining the Facebook Group!

Check out some more awesome rainbow activities from the other Virtual Book Club participants:

Roll A Rainbow Numbers Game – School Time Snippets

Rainbow Lacing Number Bonds – Rainy Day Mum

Rainbow Texture Explorations for Toddlers – Inspiration Laboratories

An Easy Rainbow Colored Fluid Dynamics Experiment for kids – Mama Smiles

Rainbow Streamer Craft – Views From a Step Stool

Rainbow Ribbon Wand Movement Activity – To Be A Kid Again

Drip Painting Rainbow Name Activity – The Educators’ Spin On It

Toddler Rainbow Art – Preschool Powol Packets