Year 1 Reflections on water: introducing painting worksheet

“What Colour Is Water?” is free to print, with no account. It is the first sheet in the Year 1 art unit “Reflections on water: introducing painting”, for children aged 5 to 6, and takes about 20 minutes.

Print it on A4. The child's pages come first; the answers, and what each wrong answer tells you, are on the grown-up page that follows. Weeks 4 to 8 of the year, 6 sheets in the unit.

Free sample · answers on the last page

What Colour Is Water?

Name: ____________ · Date: ____________
Year 1 · Art & design · about 20 minutes
Answers are on the grown-up page

Today I can notice that water can be many colours, and how watercolour gets lighter or darker.

A Look back3 min

1.
Mix red and yellow. What colour do you get? Circle it.
orangepurplegreen
2.
Mix blue and yellow. What colour do you get? Circle it.
greenorangepurple
3.
Which one of these is a primary colour? Circle it.
greenredorange

B Watch me, then you4 min

Mia paints a puddle. Her blue is too dark. She wants it lighter.

Watch me

Mia's blue paint is very dark.

She adds more water to her brush.

Now the blue is lighter, like the paler steps.

Now you

1.
Zara's grey paint is too pale. What does she add to make it darker? Circle it.
more waterblack

C Your turn7 min

Read each sentence. Circle what you would add.

1.
Your blue paint is very dark. What do you add to make it lighter? Circle it.
more waterblack
2.
Your blue paint is very pale. What do you add to make it darker? Circle it.
blackmore water
3.
Your green paint is pale and watery. What makes the colour stronger? Circle it.
more paint and less watermore water
4.
Kit mixes yellow and blue to get green. It is too bright. What dulls it a little? Circle it.
a tiny bit of blacka lot more yellow

Say it out loud: What did you add each time, and what happened to the colour?

D Spot the mistake3 min

Ali says: “Mixing red and blue makes green.”

1.
What colour do red and blue really make? Circle it.
purplegreenorange

E Think deeper4 min

Look closely at the pond. The water is not one colour.

A calm pond with reeds at the edge under a soft evening sky

1.
Write two colours you can see in the water. Then write why the water looks like that.

How did it feel?

Think about the water you painted or looked at today. Did any colour surprise you?

I can do it Nearly Not yet

For the grown-up

What Colour Is Water? · 2 minutes to read

Answers, and what a wrong one tells you

A

1. orange Purple comes from red and blue. Ask your child to put a red dot and a yellow dot together on paper and look at the mix.

2. green Orange comes from red and yellow. Ask your child which two paints sit next to each other in the swatch.

3. red Green and orange are mixed colours. Say the three primary colours together: red, yellow, blue.

B

1. black More water makes paint paler, not darker. Ask your child what happens to the colour when a little black is added.

C

1. more water Black makes a colour darker, not lighter. Ask your child which one would thin the paint out.

2. black More water makes the colour paler again. Ask your child which paint makes a colour darker.

3. more paint and less water More water makes the colour lighter. Ask your child to try less water with a bit more paint on the brush.

4. a tiny bit of black More yellow makes green brighter. Ask your child to add only a tiny drop of black and mix again.

D

1. purple Green is what blue and yellow make. Ask your child to mix red and blue on a scrap of paper and look.

E

1. Look for: Two colours seen in the water, such as purple, orange or grey, plus a reason about light, sky or time of day.

Words to use

Say“Which colour in the water surprised you? What did the light do to it?”

Instead of“Water is blue, so just paint it blue.”

After the sheet

Look at a glass of water or a puddle at two times of day. Name the colours you see each time, then compare them.

Tick what your child got right in StudyDen. Anything missed comes back in a later Look back box, so there's no need to redo the sheet.

The rest of this unit

5 more sheets come with a StudyDen plan, in teaching order:

Water-like marks(with a plan)
Water with tools and paint(with a plan)
Wax lines under paint(with a plan)
Painting together(with a plan)
Make a Shared Collage(with a plan)

Every Year 1 art worksheet

The worksheets plan opens a printable sheet for every lesson in Years 1 to 6, each with its answers on a separate page for you. It costs £6.99 a month or £59 a year for the whole family, with no free trial.

The full StudyDen plan adds the lessons themselves, marked as your child works, with the worksheets included. It is 7 days free, then £29.99 a month.

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