Teaching Children About Primary Colors

Chapter Three of How to Teach Art to Children is all about color and my kids love color, especially when it comes to paint! So, I went a little outside the lessons and made my own which allowed them a little tempra-fun. I deserve Mommy of the Year for that.

Now, you should note that Chapter Three is a little long. So, I am dividing it up so I would not feel rushed to cover it all in one week. For this lesson, we focused on the primary and secondary colors.

What you need for this lesson:

• How to Teach Art to Children
• Paper plates
• Tempra paint
• Paint brushes
• White card stock
• Copies of the “Color Wheel”
• Black permanent marker
• Smocks or old shirts
• Newspaper to cover the surface
• Wet wipes

We started by discussing line and shape as I drew lines on the white cardstock with a black permanent marker. Then, we talked about color. I explained that the three primary colors are blue, red and yellow.

Each child was given a plate with a single color on it and they chose one of the cardstock pieces on which I had drawn the lines and shapes. We rotated the colors WITH the paint brushes so our colors would not mix.

After they had painted several pictures, I pulled out copies of the Color Wheel. (FYI: They allow copies! No copyright infringement. Wonderful.) The children loves mixing the colors but we had troubles with the paint brushes holding onto the mixed colors before we were finished blending the other colors. So, I pulled out some cotton balls and used one cotton ball for each color per circle. It worked GREAT and the blending was a lot better than with the paint brushes.