Creative Color Mixing and Naming

Artists in 3rd grade recently explored color mixing in preparation for an upcoming project! We mixed 10 different colors and also came up with a unique name for each color. 

First, students explored color mixing, trying to come up with 10 different colors for their palette. We discussed how you might try to create a color that you already have in mind, like a light green, or just see what happens if you mix a lot of white, a little blue, and some yellow. Since we had just painted a color wheel with primary, secondary and tertiary colors, students were familiar with which colors to mix together to get a wide range of colors. We also experimented with adding white and black to colors, noting how it made colors lighter or darker. 

The following class, students thought of creative names for each of the colors they had made. Instead of simply naming colors "light pink" or "dark blue," students were challenged to come up with creative names like "cherry blossom pink" and "storm blue." We looked at examples of paint chips and noticed that many names were inspired by animals, nature, food, and the weather. We made a list of things we might be inspired by for color naming and then named all of our colors. 

We shared our paint colors and corresponding names with partners and then with the whole class. A lot of students used alliteration, which is when you repeat the same letter at the beginning of your words, like "pig pink" and "grass green." Check out some of our creative color names below!