Absorption and Color Mixing

Last week we did a fun activity focusing on absorption and color mixing.  We used 3 cups, 2 paper towels, food coloring and water. We first talked about absorption and how we can use things like paper towels to absorb water. We demonstrated absorbing spilt water, and how we are able to remove water from paper towels. Next we set up our experiment. We lined up 3 cups, put water in the cups on the end and left the middle cup empty. I explained how we were going to put one end of the paper towel in a cup that has water and place the other end of the paper towel in the empty cup.

We decided to add food coloring to the water to make it easier to see the water being absorbed and to see if we could get the colors to mix.

After a few minutes we were able to see the water being absorbed up the paper towel.

Here is what our cups looked like after about 10 minutes.

This was a great activity to do to combine lots of skills. The colors mixing in the middle cup was fascinating, especially if the absorption rate was different for each paper towel and you could see how the color in the middle cup changed as more colored water was added. We did the activity also using red and blue, and red and yellow.

Stay tuned for more color and rainbow activities!