SciencePreschoolers28 Comments
Learn about mixing colors with a color changing milk experiment. Your kids will think this trick is science magic!
We’re talking a lot about how colors mix together right now. I wanted to add in a little extra science twist to continue our learning.
Color Changing Milk Experiment to Magically Mix Colors
I’ve tried doing this magic color changing milk experiment in the past, but remember not having the best great success with it. I don’t remember what we did differently though because this time it worked great.
We took this milk experiment as an opportunity for George to be introduced to mixing primary colors to see what colors they would make.
To do your own color changing milk experiment, you’ll need:
- Milk
- Liquid food coloring
- Dish soap
- Q-Tip or cotton swab
First, pour milk into a small, flat dish. A pie plate worked perfectly for us.
Squirt drops of food coloring in all different colors (affiliate link), or just use two primary colors, into the milk.
Be sure to not mix it up!
Just let the drops sit as they are.
Dip a Q-tip (cotton swab) into some dish soap. I don’t believe it matters what type of dish soap, but we used Ivory dish soap and had great success.
Dip the dish soap soaked Q-tip end into the milk and watch the magic happen!
See it in action!
After doing the first experiment with all three primary colors, I thought this would be a great experiment to introduce mixing colors to George using only two primary colors at a time.
It magically mixes colors!
We did this color changing milk experiment over and over with all the combinations of primary colors.
Of course, George is just like his older brother and loves green, so that was our first experiment.
Magically mixing colors!
How do we make the color green?
Check out all our science experiments for kids.
George saw the green in the yellow and blue right away!
And then we tried red and yellow to see what they made.
It takes a long time for the colors to actually mix together.
They almost swirl around each other more than anything.
So George didn’t see orange, he kept seeing yellow. Until finally, after letting is mix almost completely together he could see the orange.
What’s so interesting about this experiment is that it bubbles up, the yellow will just appear out of nowhere in the middle of the red all of a sudden!
It really is like magic!
And then we tried to make purple. Blue and red together.
We’ve also had fun mixing colors with fizzy eruptions!
George thought it looked like it made black. I think we overdid it with the drops of color and it got to dark.
The photos here just don’t do this experiment justice. The swirling effect the colors do is just plain amazing to watch.
George’s face gives that away in some of the photos. If we had more milk on hand we could have done this to fill up our entire morning.
My husband suggested that any liquid, like water, could probably work. It’s something about breaking surface tension.
I don’t know what those terms mean, so I’m not going to pretend that I do.
But the reason for the milk is to have the white background so you can see the swirls happening.
If someone has tried color changing milk with anything other than milk, let me know if it does work! Does color changing water work?
We loved trying these other twists on the magic milk experiment:
- Read about the science of how and why this works at Steve Spangler Science
- Mess for Less made the milk explode too!
- Add glitter to see the movement, from Frogs & Snails & Puppy Dog Tails
- See what happens when color is added to only the middle of the pan at Craftulate
What are your favorite science experiments for kids? Share your ideas in the comments!
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Katrina Mason says
I love the q-tip activity. Thank you for sharing
nana says
Thank you for this wonderful site. I taught 3rd grade for 30 years and now I’m teaching grandchildren. thank you for your generosity. Your research, site development, videos all are such a gift. I’ll be starting these next week on my Nana play dates.
Thank you! ! !
Mel says
Fun activity. It does not work though with Mrs. Meyer’s dish soap. I think you need a regular commercial soap. Not a hippy dippy one:)
Liz says
Surface tension is also involved. You could use the same principle to make a detergent-powered boat: tape a bread tag onto a matchbox (or similar) with the hole of the tag sticking out. Place in a dish of water and drop detergent into the hole in the tag. That’s it! I like to stick a little toothpick flag in the box too :)
Cynthia says
I haven’t tried this one with my preschoolers in awhile. Usually I use toothpicks instead of q-tips but it is the same idea. I need to go and get some milk!
Gaby says
You may try some other liquids that contain fat, such as cream (amazing patterns) or yogurt.
But I recommend trying this experiment using Elmer’s glue (white one). Not only the swirling colors will be beautiful, but is you use a plastic dish and then let the glue dry, you get a fabulous gift for your kids’ window. Try it!
Lisa Horton says
Really enjoying your ideas. I have tried using primary colored skittles with water in a bowl and it works great. After the coloring from the candy dissolves you are able to mix and see the blended colors change into a secondary color. I tried the experiment from a post by mamajenn.com
Jamie Reimer says
Great idea Lisa!
Catherine Jakuta says
The colours swirl and mix because the soap is trying to break down the fats in the milk (this is why it works best with full fat milk) much like the soap does when you wash the dishes. This causes the colours to swirl around.
Kristina @ School Time Snippets says
We just tried this using almond milk {all we had} and it didn’t work. This was a suggested science activity for our my 1st graders curriculum today; they explained it as the dish soap breaking up the fat content in the milk– which is why I a guessing the Almond milk didn’t work and water probably wouldn’t either. Off to the store we go!
Jamie Reimer says
oh very interesting to know Kristina… that makes sense.
Rio says
We did it with water and then we used blotting paper to record our findings onto,
The blotting paper also works, well when wet, and with Any ink run onto it, pen, ink,
Food coloring, and thing that runs even ready,made poster paint
Have you tried
Oil, conflour and food colouring
That molds like flaky snow, it is great to use with winter animals
There is also slim with custard powder and water that is gloup, strange consistance on your hands
Great too with a mint and a fizzy drink stand well back
Watch on you tube
I wana know is who makes this up, i think of pop corn that was a mistake gone wrong, how nice and graet it is to get things wrong nowadays