Play Dough Colour Squish
What you need
- three balls of play dough: red, yellow and blue
How to do it
- Give your child the red ball and the yellow ball, and ask what colour they'll make if they squish them together.
- Let them squash, roll and fold the two together, watching the streaks.
- Keep going until the streaks disappear and it's all one colour. Is it the orange they guessed?
- Try yellow and blue next, then line the new balls up with the old ones and name them all.
Why it matters
Two colours take a lot of squashing to become one, so their hands get a long, strong workout, and the colour shifts a little with every squish.
What they're learning
- Squeezing and rolling
- Pushing, folding and rolling with both hands.
- Colour mixing
- Red and yellow make orange; blue and yellow make green.
- Watching change
- Streaky, then stripy, then one new colour.
What to look for
Notice them stopping halfway to look at the streaks.
A tip
Use dough you don't mind losing, because once it's mixed it stays mixed. Small balls mix faster.
Make it easier or harder
Easier: use very small balls so the colours mix quickly
Harder: squish in a little more of one colour at a time and see how many different greens they can make
