Let the child fill one sheet thus with blue, a picture of the sky. Another sheet may be covered with green, a meadow. Still another sheet may have the upper part blue and the lower green.
=Prism= (_Secure glass prism from kindergarten store or from some candelabra you may have at home_)
Place in sunlight and let child observe colors and the order in which they appear; always in the same order--the cold colors at one end, the warm ones at the other. Let the little child try to catch and hold the lovely "light-bird."
=Pigments= (_Water-color paints_, _glasses of water_)
Dissolve a little red, yellow and blue paint in three separate glasses. Then, by mingling these--the primary colors--show how the secondary colors--orange, green and violet--may be obtained.
Get at a kindergarten store the transparent papers and isinglass used in color work. By overlapping one upon another different hues may be obtained. This may be done also, though less effectively, with colored tissue papers; but these are not so pure in tone.
Color tops may be procured at kindergarten stores. With the top come paper circles, of standard colors, with their tints and shades, giving a great variety. These are so slit that by placing two or more on the top according to directions and revolving the top, any tint or hue may be mathematically produced.
If the child has made his own button-mold top, let him cut circles of white paper and slip them over the axis of the top. Make a dab of color here or there on the paper with paint or chalk. Whirl around and observe the effect. This will lead up to a better understanding of the above-mentioned color-top which is manufactured by the Milton Bradley Co.
If the child has made wagons or houses of wood or cardboard, let him paint them in broad, free strokes. It is desirable that the little child be given work which involves the free movement of the larger muscles which such work demands. This may not appeal to one as belonging under the head of art, but we learn from Mr. Pennell that in Sicily the wagons of the peasants are beautifully decorated with landscapes and other pictures, and that the artists are particular to make their names conspicuous.
In any case a certain artistic feeling is required in choosing the colors and rightly applying them even in house-painting and wagon decoration. And meanwhile the child is learning how to wield his instruments.