How did they make paint in the olden days?

As the children continued with their baskets they wondered out loud about how people made paint in the in the olden days, glue, tape, and felt pens.  Today we are going to conduct a fun science experiment to explore the process of making dyes.  We used black berries, beets, and spinach.  People in the olden days used to paint with food colouring.  They used to make natural paints by crushing foods like beetroots or berries and mix it to make paints.  They would also find colouring materials from the earth (soil and mud) around them.  Most animals could supply bright red colouring material (blood).  they would paint with fingers or brushes of animal hair or a piece of wood they had carved.

The guessed that the blackberries would make black or purple dye; spinach would make green dye, beets would make purple dye.  We also experimented with green tea and curry powder.

The children enjoying the smell of curry powder

Watching the purple dye come from beet juice

Crushing tea leaves

Using homemade dye to decorate paper doilies.