Color Hunt Activity and Color Wheel Craft

Okay, even though I am labeling this "rainy day fun" it has not actually been raining here. Instead, it's just been so hot that it feels like the flesh is melting off of my bones whenever I set foot outdoors. No joke! Heat index of 102 degrees today! Ugh... Anyway, that means that I we have been cooped up inside (God bless whoever invented central air, am I right?) pretty much all week except for when we were running errands (and a 9:00 am park play date today -- glad we didn't start that one any later). Only problem is the cabin fever aspect of things. Fortunately, this mommy keeps all sorts of lists of possible things to do.

One activity we did yesterday afternoon was a color hunt around the house. This was nice because the kids worked together instead of, you know, trying to kill each other and driving me insane in the process. Ah, reprieve! I gave them the muffin tin that I had added colored inserts to for this color sorting activity and told them to find small toys and what-nots that would be lightweight enough to glue onto paper and that they wouldn't miss after the items were glued to the paper. (Note: This ended up being a great way to have them herd up all those things that I get sick of finding everywhere like plastic ring toppers from holiday cupcakes and little goodie bag items from birthday parties.) After they found all the little toys and other odds and ends from their bedrooms, I suggested we look at the craft bins where they found plenty of sequins, beads, buttons, pom poms, foam letters, bottle caps, and the Styrofoam tiles left over from this craft. By the time they had filled up the 6 cup muffin tin, I felt that we had enough colorful finds to create our color wheel, inspired by this blog (and found on Pinterest).

{From Color Hunt...}

{To Color Wheel}

Materials for Color Wheel:

• 1/2 piece of white poster board (with grid lines, if possible)
• pencil or pen
• black Sharpie (optional)
• large frying pan (or whatever you have that's big and round)
• ruler
• scissors
• acrylic paint (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) OR markers
• something to hold paint (I used a Styrofoam tray.)
• foam paint brushes (1 per color)
• something to protect work surface (cereal box liner, vinyl table cloth, newspaper)
• hot glue gun

Directions for Color Wheel:

1. Using a pen or pencil, trace a large round object (I used my biggest frying pan) onto a half piece of white poster board. Tip: If your poster board has grid lines, I recommend keeping them visible.
2. Cut out the circle.
3. Find the center of the circle and make a dot. I used black Sharpie for this. (This is very easy to do if your poster board has grid lines. If not, you will probably want to use your ruler to help.)
4. Using a ruler, draw 3 lines across the circle. You should now have 6 pie wedges of approximately the same size. Tip: I first did this with a pencil, and then followed with a black Sharpie, correcting the placement as I went. It does not need to be perfect, but I was glad to have used pencil the first go round. I didn't bother erasing my stray pencil marks because I knew I would be painting on top of them anyway.
5. Once my circle was divided into 6 segments, I used acrylic paints to fill them in. I started my primary colors: first red, then I skipped a wedge, filled in the next with yellow, skipped a wedge, and then filled in the final part with blue. I had hoped that this would dry fast enough that the paint wouldn't touch the next corresponding part of my color wheel. (This would have worked better, though, if I hadn't immediately started painting the rest of the segments.) I finished up with secondary colors: orange (in between red and yellow), green (in between yellow and blue), and purple (in between blue and red). Make sure paint is dry before continuing to the next step. This shouldn't take more than 20 minutes or so. Tip: Protect clothing and work surface before using acrylic paints. I wore an old shirt and covered my table with a cereal box liner, which I use in place of wax paper for craft projects. Tip: I only used one coat of paint, and I didn't worry about streaks or uneven coverage at all. I knew it would get covered well enough to not matter, so save yourself some time by not trying to make it perfect. Tip: If you would like your child to fill in the color wheel, I suggest using washable markers in place of acrylic paints.
6. Using a pre-heated glue gun (adults only!) start adhering the colorful items to the corresponding sections of your color wheel until it is as full as you would like. You can have your child tell you where to place things, if desired. Tip: Self-adhesive craft foams shapes and letters will save you some glue, if those happen to be among the items your kids have scrounged up! Tip: Start with the largest items and work your way down to the smallest items, that way you can squeeze them in as needed. Tip: If you want to be sure things will fit, lay them out prior to gluing. Allow hot glue to dry completely before moving the color wheel.