Colouring seems easy, but it’s no child’s play. Colouring builds thinking skills, better reflexes, and creativity if you start young. That’s why understanding colour theory is important for kindergarteners. However, explaining such a complex concept to young children is challenging and requires a structured class with experienced teachers. An art class for kindergarten introduces these ideas, making it interesting and engaging for children.
What Is Colour Theory?
The Three Magic Colours (Primary Colours)
To understand colour theory, you need to know the three primary colours. They consist of red, blue, and yellow, where all other colours are born. Referred to as the “boss colours”, every colour centres around them. The rest of the colours are formed by mixing and matching these three colours together.
The Mixing Magic (Secondary Colours)
Secondary colours are the colours formed from mixing and intermixing primary colours. For instance, mixing red and yellow will get orange. Similarly, when you combine blue and yellow, green is formed. You can form purple by mixing red and blue together. You can create other shades by mixing one or more colours in different proportions.
Warm vs. Cool Colours (Feelings)
Colour theory also considers how colours make you feel. Thus, they are divided into two categories: warm and cool colours. For example, red, orange, and yellow make us feel warm, cosy, or excited. Meanwhile, colours like blue, green, and purple can feel calm, cold, and quiet. Thus, colour theory helps identify the emotion invoked by a certain colour.
The Colour Wheel (A Rainbow Circle)
The colour wheel is a circle that represents all the colours that exist, and we decide which colours look good with each other. Moreover, they help to identify which colours are opposites.
How Kids Learn Colour Theory in an Art Class for Kindergarten
The Basic Colour Wheel Activity
An art class for kindergarten teaching colour theory starts with the basic colour wheel. The colour wheel is used to show which colours are compatible with each other. This technique is fun and engaging for kids to learn the colour relationships. Moreover, it can be achieved through regular art supplies such as white paper, cardboard, pencil, compass, ruler, paint, or markers. Here’s a step-by-step process of how these art classes teach colour theory:
- The teacher draws a circle on the cardboard or white paper using a pencil and a compass.
- The instructor divides the circle into six equal parts.
- Then, the primary colours are labelled into three parts.
- The teacher fills in mixed colours in between the spaces of the primary colours.
- Sometimes, the instructor marks their colours with the help of a marker.
Colour Mixing Experiment
Kids’ art classes in Brisbane, such as Queensland Art School, first teach kids about secondary and tertiary colours. During the wheel activity, the secondary colours lie between the primary ones. After that, the session allows the kids to explore colour mixing on their own. This experiment requires a paintbrush, paints (red, yellow, and blue), and a cup of water for rinsing brushes. The steps involved during the experiment are:
- First: Squeezing small amounts of primary colour on the palette
- Second: Showing kids how to dip the paintbrush into the primary colour
- Third: Dipping their paintbrush into another primary colour
- Fourth: Repeating the process for creating secondary colours at each step
- Fifth: Encouraging kids to experiment further
Tinting and Shading Activity
An art class for kindergarten teaching colour theory starts with the basic colour wheel. Moreover, the classes teach them tinting, which is adding white paint while mixing colours. Here’s how they teach shading and tinting:
- Adding white colour: The instructors start by teaching the kids to add white colour to their mixed colour combo.
- Adding black colour: The next step involves adding black colour to the mixture for shading. The more paint you add, the darker the shade will be.
- Experimenting: Then, the instructors will teach you to experiment with tints and shade. For instance, mixing red and white to create pink, black and yellow to make olive green, or blue and white to create light blue.
- Application: The art class will move to help the students apply these skills in their painting.
Colour Scavenger Hunt
A colour scavenger hunt is another fun way to identify as many hues in the environment. In this process, the art teacher gives students a pencil and paper with a list of colours they need to find. The instructor will explain why they need to find the object that matches their colour on the list. While playing with more than one kid, the teacher set a timeframe and had the students complete their task within the time.
Conclusion
Colour theory is the foundation of kids’ art skills, but it’s difficult to teach them. Children are impatient with short attention spans. Thus, you need a disciplined class to keep them engaged. A proper art class for kindergarten will enable them to learn to identify and experiment with colour. Art classes offer guided exercises that build their skills through practice. In that spirit, Queensland Art School offers kids’ art classes in Brisbane with expert instructors, a diverse curriculum, and classes for specific age groups. Visit our website for more information on our courses and enroll in our classes today.
