Make your own colour wheel

A colour wheel is a great visual way to learn about primary and secondary colours and fun science crafts.

Mixing Colours

RED + YELLOW = ORANGE

YELLOW + BLUE = GREEN

BLUE + RED = PURPLE

How to make a DIY colour wheel

What you need

Two pieces of cardboard

One split pin

Coloured pens

Or, use my handy colour mixing template.

Instructions

Cut out two circles of white cardboard, one slightly bigger than the other.

Carefully cut a window into the smaller circle.

Place the smaller wheel on top of the larger one and push a split pin through the centre.

Using the correct colour pens, draw the colours like the image below.

Colour Mixing Wheel Template

Spin the wheel to find out which primary colours make secondary colours.

Colour mixing extension tasks

Try mixing paint to check your wheel is correct.

Can you add a third layer to show further colour mixes?

More colour theory activity ideas

We had lots of fun with our colour mixing water wall.

Try some colour mixing with Jelly.

Experiment to discover how many different colours you can make with coloured water. Start with the three prime colours and work from there.

colour mixing activity for a preschool science experiment. Image shows 3 beakers with blue, red and yellow water inside

Link to a book

This activity fits perfectly with the colourful books created by Erin Stoll Walsh.

Ellen Stoll Walsh – Mouse Paint, Mouse Count, Mouse Shapes

Mouse Paint is a sweet and playful story about three mice. It is perfect for introducing colour theory to young readers. The three white mice discover three paint pots on the white paper where they live. They dive into the paint to colour themselves, then splash in paint puddles and discover that primary colours, when combined, make different colours. The mice then wash themselves clean (in the cat’s water bowl) and paint the paper with all the colours they’ve made, apart from a section of white where they can hide from the cat.