Colour Mixing with Tie-Dye Playdough

DSC_0155A fun way to explore colour mixing for toddlers. Hands on, tactile learning at it’s best!

EYFS Areas Developed:

  • Expressive Arts & Design: exploring colour and how colour can be changed
  • Physical: handling the dough, strengthening muscles as they knead the dough

Playdough seems to be an eternally reached-for resource in our household lately. And for good reason. Sophia (2.3yrs) is at the age where she craves hands on, sensory play and I’m all too happy to provide it as we all know that experiences are worth so much more than merely being told something. This colour mixing activity is the perfect example of that.

Sophia can differentiate and name most colours now so I wanted to begin to introduce her to mixing colours and what better way than through the medium of her beloved playdough?

I made up a batch of basic colourless play dough using my PERFECT no-cook recipe. This recipe is just fantastic, it works every time, doesn’t require cooking, is silky soft and lasts for ages…just perfect, so make sure you take a look!

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I spilt the batch into four and made a little well in each quarter. I used my Wilton Food Gels to add a little colour to each quarter and mixed it in well, creating evenly coloured doughs. I used red, yellow, blue and green as they are the colours that Sophia is the most familiar with. I found that the colours mixed in best when the dough was still warm.

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Then I let Sophia get to work mixing the colours together. She worked really hard, using her hands and fingers to swirl the colours together creating a glorious tie-dye effect before our eyes. In some places the colours mixed to make new colours and Sophia shouted out the new colours that she saw.

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When the colours had been mixed well we rolled out the dough and stamped out some shapes. Sophia made ‘’”colour biscuits for Daddy”.

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We loved experimenting with this new form of playdough and it will keep for quite a while in an air tight container so can be played with again and again!

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If you enjoyed this activity take a look at my other PLAYDOUGH activities.

Or have a peak at my PLAYDOUGH Pinterest board for more ideas!

Follow Beth @ Wings and Roots’s board Playdough on Pinterest.  

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