Mixing colours

[rattusrattus20]

My daughter is aged 6, nearly 7 [so year 2], I'd say bang average academically, I was just doing home schooling with her now [trying to juggle this with WFH], was fairly staggered to discover that she seemingly didn't know any of the old 'if you mix red and yellow you get orange' type stuff.

Any ideas as to whether this is normal/how one woudl mostly go about teaching this topic?

My dd has known this since nursery. We have been assigned stuff this week in home learning to cover this, so think it's on the reception curriculum. We have been asked to either make primary coloured ice cubes and allow them to experiment to make colours, or do an experiment where you have 3 glasses of water in a line, and drape kitchen towel from glass 1 to 2 and 2 to 3. Put food colouring in glasses 1 and 3 and leave overnight to see what colour the middle glass ends up.

You can use a colour wheel and mix paint to create her own colour wheel.

DS2 is 5 and knows this, mostly from a song he listens to on youtube kids but also from just doing it practically. Mixing paints and seeing the colours he can make.

Get the paints out and get mixing.

I'm fairly staggered too. Have you never done painting with your seven year old at home?

What next, someone fairly staggered to find their seven year old child doesn't know the names of farm animals, can't recognise coins,doesn't know simple 2D shapes, has never played a board game.............

Why would you be staggered your daughter doesn't know something if you've never taught her? Before lick down did you treat learning as something that happened in school? I can understand this if it was say phonics, the finer points of grammar or similar, but mixing colours?

Lock down, not lick down ( although that does sound alot more fun!)

Be fair to the OP, her child has been in school for over two years and this should have been taught. This is what happens when you allow the phonics test and SATs in year 2 to take over the infant curriculum.

Any ideas as to whether this is normal/how one woudl mostly go about teaching this topic?

Well funnily enough you can teach mixing colours by... mixing colours.

One of our favourite colour mixing activities is jars of coloured water (food colouring) and pipettes and empty jars to mix into and making ‘potions’. You can also do it with white vinegar with food colouring and add a little bicarb to make fizzing potions. You could challenge her to make different coloured potions or just let her experiment.

It is in the Early years Foundation stage at least twice. They should have taught her this in nursery. The prediction part of it is quite important.

Just get mixing. Start with the 3 primary colours, see if she can predict what will happen when you mix, do it. See if she's right. Try it with black and white added to see if she thinks it will get lighter or darker etc. Make a colour wheel. Have fun!

Thanks for those constructive replies (especially @viques), I'll have a go.

I like to think that I've been reasonably good, or at least average, with my daughter in terms of home learning, in terms of phonics, reading, & so on, I just never thought to cover this particular topic.

That’s strange. Has she never done play dough or plasticine at home? Never played with transparent toys that overlap and blend? Worn fancy dress with layers of colours ? Baked a cake and put colouring in the icing? Stirred her coco pops to make the milk go brown?
I’m sure she knows this stuff in an abstract way but it’s stuff they just pick up in life surely?

The children at school are too busy learning stupid words like split diagraph or whatever it is. Age 4.

Digraph . Forgive me.

Yes, it's definitely a specific learning objective in the EYFS curriculum.

The split digraph made me laugh. I remember a Yr 2 pupil telling me that a word was a split digraph once - I had to look it up! I'm in my 50's and got an A in English O level. It just made me think WTF are we teaching our 6 year olds!

This brings back a memory of my adult daughter telling a friend that the children didn't do painting at home, "They do it at Grandma's."

I'm sure they have done it at school. Some kids just didn't get it, maybe?
We also had to do lots of craft homework, which involved painting. And we only have limited colours. We had to do mixing to get some colours.

Colour mixing is in the development matters part of the EYFS this may be something that was missed at preschool age and reception age. Now is the perfect time to teach her xx

Sometimes things just need to be gone over again. I'm sure I was doing this stuff with mine when they were about 3 but they won't necessarily remember.

@Madratlady I love the idea of the potions. My child hates paint so this would be a brilliant way for him to access it.

Don't be overly disheartened. It's not like she's missed a window of opportunity. She may have been 'taught' it but that doesn't mean she has remembered it. Ive taught my children things countless times but they don't remember and probably have no recollection of me even saying it! If it's really important to you then show her in a way she finds interesting or exciting then she'll be more likely to retain the information. Maybe when it was covered at school she just wasn't interested.
Also, we are made, (indirectly, on purpose or not) to feel like we should always be doing more. I'm sure your child knows something things others don't. She has years to pick up common knowledge stuff like this.

She may have been off Ill the one 45 min session it was taught at her school, I wouldn’t worry! My 4 year old said out the blue the other day if you mix black and white together you get grey... hadn’t even crossed my mind to teach him about mixing colours... and I am a teacher... albeit mainly teach A Level! People are quick to judge and say we’ll have you never done.... with your kids! Ignore them...! I’m sure there’s so many things you’ve done with your child that others haven’t thought to do!

It is part of the art curriculum in Yr2. Print a blank sheet for her. There are easy ones than that one shown. Then encourage her to paint some pictures for a week or two mixing her own colours each time. That way she will learn more blue will make a blue green with yellow, more yellow will be a lighter hue.

Split diagraphs are learnt in phonics. a-e, e-e, I-e, o-e, u-e as in gate.

Children usually pick this up quite easily. If they understand it at four they are doing well. We would expect them to know it in Yr1 at least before going into Yr2 although some children don’t know it by then and may take a while longer to read and write.
I had four children. I brought them all up with books from a young age. The eldest and youngest picked up reading, phonics and writing at an early age the others took longer. The main thing is to encourage them and give them a love of books by reading to them.

Going back to the colour mixing. Three of my children went to a Steiner Kindergate and they only paint with two colours to start with and they discover colour mixing themselves. They paint with those two colours for quite a while before moving on to another two. I liked this method.