Christmas Tree Chromatography : Holiday Preparations with Sparkle®

Christmas Tree Chromatography, a science activity for kids to make, talk about and use to decorate with.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Georgia Pacific. The opinions and text are all mine.

A midst all the shopping, gift wrapping, and work parties, there are kids who need us to take notice of them and spend time making meaningful moments. Yes. “It’s a messy world out there.™” But we can bring joy, laughter, and simplicity to our home by making the most of our holiday preparations.

Christmas Tree Chromatography : Holiday Preparations with Sparkle®

We all know that paper towels can be used for clean-ups (which occur quite often in my house), but they can also be used for crafting AND science! This easy holiday project will get your little ones cleaning, thinking, and decorating – with Sparkle® paper towels!!!

Read on for step by step DIY Christmas Activity instructions using paper towels.

Christmas Tree Chromatography: Holiday Preparations with Sparkle

SO… My kids REALLY like to clean our windows.

In fact, they each have their own color-coded spray bottle filled with water and a roll of paper towels to themselves. It is their absolute FAVORITE cleaning chore in the whole wide world. Why? because I only let them do it if they are good, so they think it is something very special! SHHHH, please do not let them in on my little secret.

Practical Cleaning Idea: Make Cleaning a REWARD so it’s something kids look forward to!

During one of these cleaning adventures, my boys happened to get sidetracked… The 3 year old took a detour by the craft supplies and markered on his paper towel. The 6 year old was trying to spray his brother (I didn’t say they were the best window cleaners) and happened to spray onto the markered paper towel.

Both kiddos watched in awe as the colors bled across the paper towel (and onto my counter-top – but that’s another story) They couldn’t believe that the blue turned into purples and the green had yellow in it. What was happening? Our impromptu chromatography lesson spurred a great discussion on colors.

Practical Cleaning Idea: Use water and keep markers out of reach during cleaning time!

Try this holiday activity to see which color dyes are used in each color marker. Use the finished, dried project to decorate with!

Practical Cleaning Idea: Set out old newspaper on your craft surface to protect your table from stains.

Christmas Tree Chromatography : Holiday Preparations with Sparkle®

Materials Needed

Sparkle® Paper Towels.
Scissors,
Ruler (optional)
Spray bottle with water
Markers (black, blue and purple have worked best for us)

Directions for Activity

1. Trim the paper towels into tree shapes. We stacked 8 paper towels on top of each other and cut once so the trees were all the same.

If you want to add some math in, ask the kids to draw you a tree that is 3 inches wide and 5 inches tall on the paper towel. Use that tree as your template.

2. Let the child add ornaments to the tree with different colored markers.

Try a variety of lines, circles, and waves.

Mist the trees with water from the spray bottle. Watch as the dies run on the paper towels.

Explain that the water dilutes the ink and exposes the dies used within the marker to create certain colors.

You can see from our holiday tree that the blue contained purple pigments as well. The green marker had a touch of yellow pigments. The black marker contained green and red pigments.