Preschoolers will delight in learning about color mixing with a Halloween twist by making a colorful witches brew! Using a few simple ingredients and containers you already have at home or in the classroom, you will be exploring the wonderful world of color combinations. This color mixing activity is great fun for preschoolers and toddlers because it involves a lot of messy, water play!  

Make a Witches Brew for Color Learning

But it also makes for a fun Halloween activity as your kids stir up their own witches brew.   We are always looking for Halloween fun at Kids Activities Blog!

Double, double, toil, and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble!

Little ones have fun stirring up a Wicked Witches Brew;

And you’ll sneak in some Color Mixing Learning, too!

Video: Sing Along to Stirring and stirring and stirring my brew…

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Supplies Needed For This Color Mixing Activity For Preschoolers

• water (optional: use colored ice cubes instead)
• food coloring
• spoons  or other mixing tools
• several bowls or a cauldron
• larger container or large sheet cake pan or shallow plastic bin – lighter color or white is preferred

Directions to Make Witches Brew Color Mixing Activity For Preschoolers

Step 1

Fill a few bowls with colored water – you’ll only need a drop or two of liquid food coloring.

Step 2

Then let your children take turns pouring the colors slowly into your main bowl.

We used a porcelain roasting pan for more surface area (i.e., more room to observe more colors mixing).

The Way We Learned with this Halloween Learning Activity

1. Hypothesis:  Before pouring in a new color, we guessed what the mixed color result would be.
2. Observation:  We watched the colors mixing together.
3. Conclusions:  After a few practice *potions*, we became better at guessing what the color results would be.  We also took turns guessing whether the color would get darker, lighter, or more heavily tinted with a particular color.

Muddy black was the favorite color, of course!

Scientific Method for Kids

If you want to dive deeper into the scientific method for kids then check out our printable coloring pages and information sheets where kids can learn more about the way experiments are done.

Variations on the Color Mixing Experiment

To really explore the concept of color mixing, try limiting your child’s choices to just two planned colors, like red and yellow, and watch them swirl to make orange.  Get a fresh bowl of water and repeat your experiment with a new pair of colors.

To make the experiment even more fun, use colored ice cubes and watch the colors slowly dissolve together.  Using ice cubes helps the children view the mixing more easily since you can achieve an area of one color, an area of the second color, and an area where the two colors intersect.

What types of learning potions have you whipped up lately?

More Color Mixing Fun for Kids from Kids activities Blog

Color Mixing turns into a fun Halloween activity when your little ones can make their own witches brew.   Check out these other kids activities that teach about color mixing:

• Let’s match colors with this DIY Color Wheel
• Snack time was never this colorful! Answer the question blue and green make…with snacks!
• Color mixing turns to marbling with this shaving cream paint idea!
• Play with colored ice cubes and see how the colors mix and they melt.

Check out this list of large activities for preschoolers!

How did your color mixing witches brew turn out? Did it make the colors you expected?