Turtle Color Wheels

Art Level: Elementary (ideally Kindergarten)
Materials required: paper plates, finger paint, scissors, paper

Me with the little ones learning about color!

 

Color! It is such an exciting thing for students to experiment with. I find kids just always get more excited when there is color involved. Their faces light up and you can tell they are thinking about all of the crayons they are going to rummage through and break. Color may be messy, but it sure is FUN!

This lesson was done at the Ringwood Public Library for my internship, where I ran 4 different programs for children of all ages. For this class, we created color wheels but added a little something extra :) Students created their own TURTLE color wheels. They learned about the primary colors, secondary colors and then cut out paper to glue their turtle parts onto their wheels.

I created my own color wheel to present to the class and walked around the room asking them to identify what colors #1, #2 and #3 were

Students were then given their own color wheel paper plates and asked to fill in the first three colors with finger paint.

Then, students mixed the primary colors on a separate paper plate to get the secondary colors. Students were amazed that they were changing colors with their very own hands! Then, the turtle color wheels began.

I have to say, without the help from the parents in the class this would've been difficult. I had a room full of 30 young children who were mostly 5-6 years old. Plus, the kids brought their younger siblings so I was handling a lot of preschoolers, as well. I didn't mind, and the parents and I worked together successfully! However, I knew for next class to clarify the age on the sign up sheet!

Look Mom! I have my own art cart!

This was such a fun and exciting lesson for the students and myself. It was definitely messy, so I suggest doing this lesson and having a bit of assistance. Color is always a good time, though :)