Colour Discovery Water Transfer

Apr 14, 2012

This water transfer activity will take you moments to set up and provide your child with a great activity to help promote colour recognition, discovery and guess work while practicing fine motor skills, focus and concentration.

Ages: 2+

Materials: Multi vessel container (recycled packaging or ice-cube tray), pipette/turkey baster/eye dropper/small syringe (many come with children's medicines), water, food colours

food colour experiment, fine motor skills activity, food color, kids activity
 Simple put a few drops of food colouring in each segment. Have some basic colours and mix some others. I used the instructions on the back of the food colouring box to see how many drops of each colour would create other colours. Some were just random and even I had no idea which colour would show up. Provide a vessel of water and some water transfer tools.

 Learning to squeeze the bulb then release to suck up the water and then squeezing the bulb again to release the water.

 Guessing and seeing which colours appeared when water was added was quite exciting

 Going from the pipette to the syringe was a little tricky as she had to learn a new process. Pull up to get water, push down to release water. It didn't take long to get the hang of it.

 The syringe squirted the water out very fast. Woah!

A wonderful array of colours. But now what to do with them? How about some testing some absorption on cotton pads, making pretty patterns on towelling paper or making 'cloud jars' with shaving foam and water?

We LOVE Science Activities Here!

Here's our 2 most popular ones

Water Bottle Fountain                                              Cloud Jars

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity for younger children by focusing on the water transfer. Can they get water from one vessel to another? If pipettes etc are too tricky for little fingers provide a small spoon for them to transfer the water. Which colour will each segment have?

- Extend this activity by using your coloured water to experiment with, try mixing the colours, test absorption on cotton pads, try some art on towelling paper or use with a cloud jar experiment. Children could also write down their guesses for the colours in each segment.


- You could also put drops of food colour in the bottom of various glasses for them to experiment with.

- See what happens to the colours when you add more or less water. Talk about the strength of colour. dark or light? etc


Happy playing,
Debs :)

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  1. This looks like such fun! My son would really enjoy it.

    1. Thanks, it was fun. I think we'll repeat it soon because she loved it :)

  2. I think I'd be using that colored water to paint with - preferably paper that "bleeds" to let the colors run into each other for a new discussion about mixing/making colours. I just bought some pipettes, I think I'll try this on the holidays!

