Colour Fun

The Podlings have been on half-term this week and it has been so nice to have them home. We have been to the park a few times, we've baked cakes, we've watched cartoons, read books, played in the garden and just had fun in each other's company. However, today is the first time I have taken any photos of anything we have done, which is unusual for me.

It was too cold to play outside today. Tom and Lily came back in from the trampoline after less than five minutes, declaring they were too cold to play (almost unheard of!) Emma had the sense not to go outside at all! We gave Tom a colour mixing science set for Christmas and this afternoon seemed a good time to pull it out and have a go. It proved to be a huge hit with all three Podlings. They spent ages pipetting the different solutions to see what colours they could make and it was fascinating to watch their thought processes. Tom and Lily already know the basics of colour mixing, but it was interesting to watch them experimenting with shades. Emma has known her colours since she was about 18 months old, but she still likes to demonstrate her knowledge and had a great deal of fun today.

In addition to colour mixing, they also made gel-crystals and we put some colour tablets in milk and watched the colours swirl together. They then played with soap-tipped cotton buds and were fascinated by the effect this had on the colours. I pitched the explanations low this time, but they had a lot of fun and I hope they learned something along the way.

We read various colour-themed picture and story books after we had finished our science experiments and I finished off our colour-themed afternoon with a special treat...a blue bath. I simply put some food colouring in the bath and hunted around for some blue toys to throw in it. I can tell you this was a HUGE hit with the Podlings. Tom is usually quite keen not to have a bath (though he loves it once he is in there), but he couldn't wait to get in this one! I have already had requests for baths in every shade imaginable, so I think we have some scope for future colour fun around here!

I can't believe how quickly this week has flown by. I truly love having the children home for the holidays and I wish half-term could go on forever! I love my little people!

Colour mixing.

Playing with soap and lipids.

A blue bath!  Tom was still in science mode during the bath and kept asking me for different colour toys so he could see how their colours appeared under the blue water. For very little effort this bath provided a huge amount of fun and colour baths are definitely something we will do again (and, no, the coloured water doesn't stain anything, though it would have been amusing to tuck three smurfs into bed this evening!).

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