Instill the love of color and how primary and secondary colors relate to one another with a hands-on color wheel classroom activity. In life, there is no hard line when transitioning from yellow to orange or blue to green. It is the variations of color that occur in nature – like we see in a rainbow.
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For this activity, start with the basic color wheel printout. Younger children, can use the labeled color wheel printout. While children already familiar with the color wheel, should use the unlabeled printout.
Grab a stack of magazines and let children find colors in primary and secondary colors for this color wheel classroom activity. This example focuses on colors in everyday foods. Yellow corn and mac and cheese becoming a little more orange. Red tomato, blueberries and green salads. Challenge children to find a blue food. If a color can’t be found, look to the earth in water and sky, green grass, orange sunsets.
Triangle shapes were easy to work with. Children can put the magazine clippings into the color wheel triangle for that color. Colors can overlap to show the transition from one color to the next. Go from primary to secondary then back to primary until the circle is filled in.
The activity can be left in a freeform pattern as I have done, or it can be trimmed into a circle once the magazine clippings are glued into place.
The mixture of primary colors to create the secondary colors will be more memorable with a classroom activity instead of just reading about it.
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