Location: indoor or outdoor

Materials: food coloring, water, clear cups, eyedroppers or pipettes

Fill three or more cups with water and add in a few drops of food coloring Provide additional empty cups that the children can fill with water. What happens when they mix certain colors together? Can they make green?

Children may get excited and impatient and want to pour the cups of color together. If you want to focus on fine motor skills, remind children to use the eyedroppers. The practice with pouring is also good practice, but of a different sort.

Possible Extensions:

• Want to turn this into an art project? Instead of mixing colors in another cup, mix them on a paper towel, coffee filter, or watercolor paper
• Don't have eyedroppers or pipettes? Use plastic straws by putting the straw in the liquid, covering the end of it with a finger, moving the straw, and then releasing the finger (this is harder than using an eyedropper, so may be too difficult for some children). For an easier alternative you could also try using q-tips for dropping color on paper or paper towel