Color UN-mixing

Awesome experiment from the Surfing Scientist! Kids investigate laminar flow: liquid flowing in parallel layers. They rotate a cylinder glass, watching colors mix and un-mix right before their eyes!

Lego Roll

Last year I wrote about learning fractions with Legos. To turn this activity into a math station, I made a Lego Roll game. Kids roll a die to determine what color comes next for their fraction tower. After ten rolls, have kids figure out their fractions for each color.

Another Lego math station idea is to write fractions on notecards and have children create the fraction out of Legos (like a fraction museum). Once they've built all of their towers, they can call the teacher over to check.

Color Mixing Fractions

This idea was inspired by Mama Jenn's Magic Painting / Color Wheel activity. Kids explore primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, while learning fractions! Check out her site for a free printable. Plus, see how you can do this activity with food coloring and paper towels.

Musical Fractions

Kids explore fractions, while writing a colorful melody, without even knowing how to read music! Fill glasses up with different fractions of water and add food coloring. Provide students with paper to write their songs. Have kids make a hypothesis about why the glasses of water project different sounds. Is it the color of the water: No! Kids will be wowed at how water level makes an impact on the sound that projects from each glass. The fraction of water in each glass produces a different pitch.

Octacube

paper cubes via flickr cc: Malachi Brown

This 8 cube puzzle helps kids develop problem solving skills, while exploring geometry! The goal - "build a 2×2×2 cube, so that every side of the larger cube has only one color, and so that faces that touch each other match in color." - Jaap. Above is an example of what your color patterns on your cube template should look like. You can find a blank printable cube template here (you will need 8 cubes for the puzzle). Visit Jaap's Puzzle Page for more details!

Note: You could also paint wood cube blocks.

Frac-Geo-Bot (Fractions, Geometry, Robot)

Frac-Geo-Bot is a fun math activity for kids to get creative. They design a robot out of various polygons. Then, they figure out the fraction for each shape and color. Older kids can design more complex bots, like the one below. Younger kids can create simpler bots, using basic shapes.

Hue Finder

Live Strong has a fun outdoor color match game for kids. Stop at your local hardware store and snatch a bunch of paint chip strips to use on a color scavenger hunt. Kids go around on a color hunt, matching paint chips to items all around them. Find colors inside and outside. Use you color tool spring, summer, fall, and winter. Put color cards on a book ring for easy handling. Kids can take turns using it in the classroom and outside on the playground. Optional - Have kids use a hole puncher and punch holes in the colors they find.

nature photos via alamy

Measure the Rainbow

Kids learn the color components of the rainbow, and practice their measuring skills! Visit Free Kids Crafts for the full tutorial!

Paint Chip Story

Have kids choose five color samples with intriguing names to create a story! Check out Education.com for all the details! Check out the color thesaurus here!

Marker Chromatography

How many colors are in one crayola marker?! - Kindergarten, Kindergarten

Is Black Really Black? Sharpie Experiment -  Steve Spangler 

Experiment with sharpie markers, create a tie dye tee! - Spangler

Chalk Chromatography - Is green just green? Conduct an experiment with markers and chalk to find out what colors make up a single colored marker. After your experiment, draw with your colored chalk!

M and M Math

Make math fun with m and m's! Give each child a small ziploc bag of various color m and m's. Have them estimate, count, and graph their m and m's. Give kids markers for each color m and m. They will make their graph by putting a dot for each color they have (going vertical). 

Traveling Water

Experiment with color mixing and traveling water! Visit All for Kids to check out their experiment (featured above)!

Colored Cubes

The Colored Cube experiment is great for teaching kids primary and secondary colors. All you need is Sprite and colored ice cubes (2 red, 2 yellow, and 2 blue). Put a red and yellow cube in one cup, blue and yellow in a second cup, and red and blue in a third cup. Next, pour Sprite into all of your cups. Voila, kids see how primary colors mix in action! Below is an experiment my class conducted.