Because we had been making flowers for Mother’s Day last week, there were several children asking if we could make flowers again today.  Instead of repeating the same activity with the handprint flowers, I wanted the children to be able to create a different flower.  I decided to create tie-dye flowers instead.

I got large basket coffee filters.  I find these great for art, so I always keep them stocked in a cupboard.  I also got out 3 paint holders, eye droppers and food colouring.  I covered the table with plastic.  I filled each paint holder half full with water and then added food colouring to the water.  I added several drops of the food colouring to make sure the colours were strong.  I used red, blue and yellow, but you could use any colours you wanted to. 

I then gave each child at the table a large coffee filter and a black marker.  I had them print their name near the edge of the filter.  Once their name was printed, they filled the eyedroppers with coloured water and dropped it slowly on to their filter.  They continued this until the entire coffee filter was full of colours. 

Once the filters are dry, I assisted the children with twisting them in the middle and wrapping a green pipe cleaner around them as the stem.

This activity is fun, and not only does it allow the students to get creative, but they get to learn what colours are made when colours are mixed.