Color Mixing Experiment

We've been reading books about colors and color mixing. Mouse Paint is a wonderful story that nicely illustrates the three primary colors mixing into three secondary colors. We did a little science experiment so the Bunnies could see colors mixing in slow motion. We used clear pitchers filled with water. I squirted a layer of shaving cream on top of the water and then the children suggested color combinations to mix together. I dripped concentrated liquid watercolors on the shaving cream. Eventually the watercolors trickle down into the water, but the shaving cream slows the process down and allows for easy viewing of the colors blending together.
We watched for a few minutes then went to the playground. When we returned, we noticed that the red/blue combination still look mainly blue, not purple. I asked the children what we might do to make it look more purple. Wow - that took some higher level thinking skills to come up with the solution to add more red. They had to recall what we had already done, evaluate the situation, suggest solutions (more blue!), revise their thinking to adjust for new information (adding blue will make it even bluer!), suggest another solution and observe the results. This is the exact process that a scientist uses when conducting experiments.