The Color Wheel Worksheet

Science Worksheet · Grades 3–5

The Color Wheel Worksheet

A worksheet about the color wheel for grades 3 through 5. Students study a printed twelve-hue wheel that marks the primary and secondary colors, read about how every other color is mixed from three, which colors sit opposite each other, and why a screen starts from a different set of colors than a paintbox, then answer multiple choice, true/false, and fill-in-the-blank questions.

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Subject

Science

Grades

Grades 3–5

Skill Focus

The Color Wheel, physical science

Lesson Length

20 minutes

Learning Objectives

Students will study a twelve-hue color wheel and answer comprehension questions about primary, secondary, and complementary colors, warm and cool halves, and why the primary colors of light are not the primary colors of paint.

Name the three primary colors of paint and explain why they are primary.
Explain how secondary and tertiary colors are mixed.
Identify complementary pairs and describe what they do side by side and mixed.
Distinguish mixing pigment from mixing light.

Lesson Overview

About this worksheet

A color wheel is not just a tidy way to arrange colors. Where a color sits on the circle tells you what it is made of and which colors it will get along with, and that is a thing to look at rather than to read about. This worksheet prints the full twelve-hue wheel at the top of the page.

Printing a color wheel on a black-and-white worksheet takes some thought. This one solves it by carrying the categories in marks rather than in color: a filled dot on each primary, an open dot on each secondary, nothing on the six tertiary hues in between. Everything the questions ask about stays visible on paper, including the fact that complementary colors always sit directly across the circle from each other.

The lesson runs from three colors to twelve. Red, yellow, and blue cannot be mixed from anything else. Mix two of them and you get the color between them. Mix a primary with the secondary next to it and you fill the gaps with the two-part names, blue-green and red-orange and the rest. Look straight across and you find the complements, which look brighter side by side and cancel to a dull brown in the pot.

The last section is the one most elementary material skips. “The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue” is true of paint and false of light. A screen builds color out of light and starts from red, green, and blue, and where three paints mix to muddy brown, three lights mix to white. Any child who has looked closely at a screen deserves that explanation rather than a flat contradiction.

Section A asks students to circle the best answer to four multiple choice questions. Section B asks students to write TRUE or FALSE for six statements. Section C asks students to fill in six missing words. A complete answer key is included on page 3.

How to Use This Lesson

Distribute the worksheet or display it for the class.

Have students study the color wheel at the top of the page, then read the passage.

Students complete Section A (multiple choice), Section B (true/false), and Section C (fill in the blank).

Review answers together using the included answer key.

Printable Resource

A classroom-ready PDF with everything in one printable resource.

Full Member Resource · Printable PDF · 3 pages · Answer Key