Planet Science Parents

jump to main menu

mini innovators...

rainy day colour explorations

Tye Dye Paper Place Mats. With this activity, you help your child use paper towels, construction paper and food colouring to make beautiful tie-dyed placemats (or photo mats).


In the process, your child will have a chance to observe how primary colours combine to create secondary colours.

The activity is of course very creative, especially if you can get them to stop and think about what colours they want and why, but making place mats for the family dinner means an early sense of creating a 'product', though or course there's no need to tell them that, they might charge you for it!


You will need:

  1. Preschool child eager for attention

  2. Vegetable food dyes

  3. White paper towels (2 ply)

  4. Small cups of some sort (plastic beakers for example)

  5. Water

  6. Newspaper


What to do:

Let your child help you fill each of the cups full with water.

Help your child add a few drops of food colouring to each cup. Use the directions on the package of vegetable dyes to create a variety of colour mixtures.

Spread a couple layers of newspaper on the table.

Take one paper towel and fold it down 4 or 5 times.

Guide your child to dip each of the four corners of the folded towel into different cups and leave it there long enough so the colour soaks in, but not so long that the towel becomes too wet. (You'll want to experiment to get the right amount of liquid dye on the towel, say the first three aren't real ones to avoid disappointment!)

When the each of the towel's 4 corners has been dipped and dyed, open the towel and placed it on the newspaper to dry.

Repeat with as many towels as you wish, varying colours as you go.

After the towels have dried, look together at the colours. Call attention to each separate colour, and notice what resulted at the places on the towels where the colours blended together.




<< Go Back