Hands-On Color Mixing Stem Activity

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Preschool is the perfect time to engage your child in the wonders and thrills of science activities like this one. Try this color mixing stem activity with whole milk to help increase your student’s interest in science and color.

Your child will also enjoy this hands-on shaving cream color mixing activity.

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Color Mixing Picture Books to Read

Any activity with a preschool child is perfectly introduced by a picture book. Find a related picture book to read before your craft, lesson, or science activity. Here’s a list of color mixing picture books to read before your stem activity.

Mouse Paint by Ellen Still Walsh. A bunch of mice play in paint, and then realize they are visible to the hungry cat. How will they get out of this predicament?

Bear Sees Colors by Karma Wilson. From the author and illustrator of Bear Snores On comes a new delightful bear tale.

Cat’s Colors by Airlie Anderson. Cat collects colors everywhere he goes.

White Rabbit’s Color Book by Alan Baker. A gentle and beautiful introduction to mixing colors.

Mix It Up! by Herve Tullet. An interactive color mixing book for kids!

What is STEM?

STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math. Activities that touch on these subjects are grouped together and called STEM. Because of our ever-changing technological world, STEM is becoming increasingly important for kids. Doing STEM activities when kids are little doesn’t necessarily teach them specific concepts, but it does build neural pathways and hooks for later. Add more STEM to your day with this shape-building engineering activity.

The Science

This very fun activity is actually a science experiment! When you do the color mixing stem activity with your kids, you are giving them an early look at physics happening right before their eyes. The surface tension of the milk is disturbed when a drop of dish soap is added in the center. Because the soap bonds with the fat content in the milk, the milk “pulls away” from the soap droplet pulling the food coloring with it.

Tips and Tricks for the Color Mixing Stem Activity

• You *must* use high-fat milk for this to work. Whole milk works best and half-and-half will work too. Low-fat milk will not work.
• Placing the plate on a cookie sheet makes clean up easy and helps prevent accidental staining.
• If you have older kids joining you, try the experiment with different types of milk, different types of food coloring, and different types of dish detergent to figure out what works best.
• You *must* use high-fat milk for this to work. Whole milk works best and half-and-half will work too. Low-fat milk will not work.
• Placing the plate on a cookie sheet makes clean up easy and helps prevent accidental staining.
• If you have older kids joining you, try the experiment with different types of milk, different types of food coloring, and different types of dish detergent to figure out what works best.

The Scientific Method

Preschool seems really early to start talking about the scientific method. You don’t have to get intense about it, but even with preschool children, you can ask questions to get them thinking and build those neural pathways for science! Answering questions and describing events also helps preschool children practice important verbal communication skills. Here are some questions to ask.

• What do you think will happen when we add the dish soap?
• What is happening here?
• Could we try dropping something else on the plate of milk?
• What do you think makes this work?
• Tell me what did we learn?
• What do you still wonder?

Make sure to leave time for your student to ask questions too, and answer them as best you can. Look it up when you don’t know the answers. You can find amazing videos on YouTube for preschool science! Take a look at these fantastic ways to explore the Scientific Method with kids and has a free printable to use.

Materials for the Color Mixing Stem Activity

• whole milk. no substitutes.
• 2-4 different color food dyes
• dish soap
• q-tips
• a small bowl
• a plate

Instructions for the Color Mixing Stem Activity

1. First, place your plate on a hard surface and pour in the milk until the bottom is covered.
2. Next, drop one droplet of each color food dye you have near the center of the plate.
3. On the side, pour some dish soap into the small bowl and have your learner coat one end of their Q-Tip with it.
4. Finally, ask your learner to hold the dish soap coated Q-Tip onto the food dye for 10-15 seconds and watch what happens!
5. Repeat in another section of the plate if you like. You can add several drops of dish soap before the magic stops and the milk is soap-saturated.