All right. Here’s another lovely little art experience from this book:

First Art : Art Experiences for Toddlers and Twos by MaryAnn F. Kohl.

Since I already reviewed the book in my last post, let’s get right to the fun stuff: Ice cube color theory! The book’s version of this activity is a bit more complex and has several variations. I chose to keep it to the very basics for now.

Let me start by saying, this project has been a major hit. Pearl has asked to do it many many times since our initial activity.

The gist: Get an ice cube tray and fill each section half full of water. Put a drop of food coloring in a couple of the sections, preferably colors that mix well. Give your child a paint brush and let them explore color theory by mixing the colors in the remaining sections of water.

I put a couple drops each of red and blue food coloring in the sections of water on the left-hand side of the tray. The rest of the sections are the result of Pearl dipping her brush into the tinted sections and transferring some of that color to the other sections.

A word of caution. With this first run, I put several drops of food coloring in the sections at the end of the tray. You really only need about one drop. Too many drops equals a lot of dye that gets messy later on.

Aren't those hues gorgeous? I just love all the shades and colors that emerge in the water. And it's all so tidy in the ice cube tray.

And now for the final result…

Colored ice cubes! Pearl was so excited about the activity that we ended up making two trays of cubes. The heart-shaped cubes added another layer of fun.

So, what were some of the things we learned with this simple activity?

  • Color Theory: She really understands that mixing blue and red makes purple. And not only that, but mixing different amounts of blue and red make an infinite assortment of purples!
  • Freezing Theory: Her excitement about putting the trays in the freezer and pulling out frozen ice cubes later in the day was just adorable. And colored ice cubes? Even cooler. No pun intended. Really.
  • Messy Theory: This was a mommy lesson. One drop of coloring is plenty. Believe me. See those dark dark ice cubes in the picture? They’re beautiful, but ice cubes melt when played with and ice cubes dyed with too much food coloring stain little fingers and clothes.
  • Repetition Theory: Pearl has asked to do this activity several times a day since we first did it. It’s so simple to set up and requires very little supervision, so I encourage it. She seems to get real satisfaction from creating all the different hues of color and freezing her art to make ice cubes. I also like that she has total control over the results. After I put the drops of food color in, this is her work and I don’t interrupt or make suggestions.

Now I just need to get a package of primary colors food coloring. The only packages at the store when I bought these were neon (pink, bright blue, purple, and green). The pink passed for red in this case, but I can’t wait to do this activity with blue and yellow added in to the mix.

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