Primary Colors and Secondary Colors

Objective
To teach students about primary colors and show them how to mix primary colors to achieve secondary colors.

Materials
 12” by 18” white construction paper; tempera paints (red, blue, yellow), brushes, water in containers

Vocabulary
 Color, primary, secondary

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Instructions

1. Set everything out on the art table, making sure each student has supplies. Tell the students that they will be working with colors today, and that color is an element of art.
2. Point to each color and identify its name. State that these are the primary colors. Primary colors can’t be broken down into other colors, but they can be used to build ‘new’ colors. Explain that when two primary colors are mixed, we call the new color a secondary color.
3. Instruct the students to paint a streak of blue on the page. Ask them to clean the brush, dip it in red and mix it with the blue. Ask them what happens. Purple will appear. Do this again, mixing the different primary colors in combos to yield green and orange.

                       
                        Blue + Red = Purple
                        Yellow + Blue = Green
                        Yellow + Red = Orange
 
Once you have gone through the lesson, allow your students to do their own mixing and painting as they wish.