Learning Primary Colors with Pudding and Food Coloring

I have 5 kids aged 9 down to 2, so finding activities that everyone can do together is always a challenge. This was a great activity to help the kids learn about primary colors and what happens when certain colors mix together! Everyone enjoyed this short activity and the rewards of doing a mini art lesson today.

_{The pudding all mixed together}

The first thing we did was mix together our pudding and separate it into three bowls. The goal was to learn the primary and secondary colors, so I used red, blue and yellow food coloring - one in each bowl with the pudding.

_{Even Flat Stanley joined us!}

I could only wrangle up three of my kids today - the other kids were playing with neighborhood friends. And please excuse their super dirty feet sitting right on the counter. This.Is.Panama.

Each kid chose which colors they wanted to mix together in their bowl and I spooned it up for them. Then they guessed what color it would become. Since the base color of the pudding was yellow, each one already had kind of been mixed (the red was a little orange and the blue was quite green). So when the colors were mixed, they kind of did not do like I wanted them. Having a white base (like frosting) would have been better. The kids, however, did not care and they just ate it up!

I did something similar to this over the weekend for my son's donut birthday party. I made different frosting colors and let the kids dip the donuts in them. Then they mixed them all up at the end. The frosting base was white because it was milk and powdered sugar, so the colors really stood out. This activity was also a fun way to mix up colors and talk about what happens when blue and red are mixed together.

I recommend either of these activities for younger children to learn primary colors and what happens when they are mixed up. It is fun for older kids as well because they can try mixing three and see what happens or figure out if you do two spoons of red and three of blue what shade of purple it will be.

Items needed include spoons, bowls, pudding mix and milk to make the pudding. Take caution with allergies and if you allow the child to use the mixer! It is a fun activity with an added bonus of a snack at the end.

Procedure:

• Make vanilla pudding
• Split into three bowls
• Add red, blue and yellow food coloring to each bowl
• Add 2 spoonfuls of 2 colors to each child's bowl and mix
• Eat!

Thanks to @pennsif for creating this Homeschool Contest! Today was the first day I heard about it and the deadline is tonight! I hope they will run this again! I also just learned about the homeschool channel in the Homesteaders Online Discord group! I am super excited about that!