As part of The New School-West culture, the children mix their own tempera paints for the easels in the front yard. Once a week, a small group of about four children work together on creating a palette of colors. At the beginning of the year, the West Wing children learn to recognize colors. To foster this, teacher Sam only brings out the three primary colors: red, yellow, blue, and then black and white. To begin with Sam has them choose two colors to mix. This is followed up with discussing the effect.
Dashiell: I want to mix yellow and red.
Sam: What color do you think that will make?
Dashiell: I don’t know.
He mixes them.
Dashiell: It mixed orange! I made an orange color.
Felix: I want to mix blue and yellow.
Sam: What color do you think that will make?
Felix: I’m not sure.
Maddox: I think it’s going to make green.
Maddox watches Felix intently to see if his theory is correct.
Felix: I did make green!
Sam introduces the concept of shades (values of one color) by offering the white or the black tempera.
“I have found that mixing the paints for the easels is valuable in that it is a unique and very hands on way to explore colors. The children create the cause and effect themselves, creating ownership to each color.” -Sam