As I put my children to sleep at night and we lay there talking before they nod off, my children choose to talk about colors. They ask my what this color and that color make – and my answer is usually brown because they spew out four colors at a time. This nightly routine really got me thinking about how they could experience color mixing. Crayons and markers just were not going to work, so I knew I would have to show them with paints. 
To make a template for them to follow and control their results, I traced circles with a sharpie (because it doesn’t bleed when it gets wet) onto a piece of paper (watercolor paper if you have it) and wrote the name of the color in the middle with a white crayon (a broken one because yeah… my kids like to break crayons). To trace the circles I looked high and low and found a can and a roll of tape – perfect! 
I took out the individual colors for them to use so the watercolors didn’t get all mixed up and turn brown. To show them how primary colors made secondary colors I mixed them in the lid and listened to the ewwwwsss and ahhhhssss. 
They really loved this and beg me to paint everyday now! Their pictures are hanging in their rooms above their beds and now when we talk about colors I remind them of this exercise. 
Enjoy, 
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