Coffee Filter Color Painting

A few weeks ago we did a fun hands-on color experiment (and my kids LOVED it), but since we have been reading books about colors, I wanted to do another fun color activity. Since painting is big in our house, I rummaged through our craft room looking to see what we could do and I found a pile of coffee filters. I immediately knew that we would be doing some coffee filter color painting.

While my kids were having a nap, I collected everything that we would need for coffee filter color painting. Below is the list. I had everything on hand, so hopefully you will too!

• watercolors and paintbrush
• plastic container for water
• spray bottle
• parchment paper (or something to place painted coffee filters on to dry)
• scissors
• yarn
• tape

My daughter is a big fan of spray bottles so the second she saw that I had one outside with paint she was very interested in what we were going to do. She sprayed the entire coffee filter with water until it was soaking wet. This is great fine motor practice for the littles too so win win!

After the coffee filter was wet everywhere, she got right to work painting. As she was painting, we were talking about the different colors. I would ask her questions about the specific colors she was was painting, like “What things in our world are purple?” or “can you remember what blue and yellow will make?”.

I moved the painted coffee filters onto parchment paper and brought them inside to dry. If it had not been so windy, I would have just left them outside to dry. Once they were dry we decided to cut them into shapes and make a decorative banner. Molly, my oldest, requested hearts and since that would be super easy to cut, I happily agreed. (You can obviously cut these into any shape that you or your child/student would like.)

I then attached the hearts to a long piece of yarn and then we hung it up on the wall. I love how the colors blurred together and gave it a tie-die look. Molly was very proud of her hearts and that she could have them hanging up in the playroom.

Are you looking for more ideas, activities, and printables about color to do at home or in the classroom? If so click here.