Mixing Colors

 I've been wanting to try this experiment with Lincoln for awhile now, so I made a bunch of red, yellow, and blue ice cubes using food coloring and froze them. But things kept coming up and we never got around to getting them out. Then the other day we went to the library and by chance, Linc picked out a book called Blue Goose. It's about animals that paint their farmyard different colors while the farmer is away, and it talks about mixing two colors together to make a new color. Lincoln loves the book, and asks to have it read to him all the time. So I decided it was time to pull out the ice cubes. We did red and blue first, because those are the first colors they mix together in the book. I put a red ice cube and a blue ice cube in a plastic sandwich baggy and taped it shut (I didn't have any zip locks). I gave one bag to Lincoln and one bag to Ivan. They played with the ice cubes while they melted, and then I pointed out how when the ice melted the different colors mixed together to make purple water.

I didn't know if it would be over Lincoln's head or not, but he really caught on quickly. Now, whenever we read the book and I ask what color you get when you mix red and blue, he says purple every time. And I think he really does understand the concept, instead of just spitting out a memorized answer. We only did red and blue, because of attention span, but another one of these days we'll try out yellow and blue, and red and yellow to see what happens. :) Also, I think once we've done all the different variations in ice cube form, we'll mix paint to solidify the concept. Anyone know of anything else you can mix?