We love to play our favorite color game to practice the names of colors and do lots of color mixing experiments to see what happens when we mix together two of the primary colors {red, blue and yellow}. Of all the color mixing we’ve done, our play dough color game was one of my boys’ favorites. It was hands-on, squishy and created fun new play dough colors they used to create sculptures later.
And speaking of Playdough, check out our super fun Playdough Mats!
Making Our Playdough
First, we grabbed our largest pot and mixed together the ingredients for a triple batch of our favorite play dough recipe. I scooped one third of the uncooked mixture in a separate pot and placed another third of the mixture in another pot. That made three pots of the play dough mixture. It created a little extra cleaning but it helped make sure that the colors didn’t mix before we were ready.
The boys helped me add a teaspoon of red gel food coloring to one pot, a teaspoon of blue in the second portion and a teaspoon of yellow to the last third. We mixed the food coloring into each batch and then cooked them.
Making Secondary Colors
After the play dough cooled for several minutes, I gave my four year old one ball of red and one of blue. “What do you think will happen when you mix these two colors together?” I asked.
He thought for a moment. “They’ll make a new color! I bet it’ll make green.”
“Let’s see!” I said. My son took pinches from both play dough balls and began squeezing them together. A minute later he was thrilled to start seeing the result.
He was so excited by the magic of it all he didn’t even care that he’d guessed incorrectly.
My son eagerly switched the ball of red for a ball of yellow and started mixing again.
Our mixing experiment wrapped up when he squished together red and yellow to make orange.
Combining play dough was a simple and exciting way to start learning about secondary colors.
More Playdough Fun
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is there a way to do this that does not incloude cooking
Hey I was wondering if mixing colors of playdough would work if the play-doh has cooled ? I want the kids to combine yellow and blue to make green for the book little yellow little blue.
Hi Cherri,
Yes! It should work well.
If it’s really cool, it might take a little more mixing, but it should still create the new color.
Warmly,
Ashley // Happiness Ambassador