Color Wheels on a budget

I know that many art rooms, like my own, are on a very tight strict budget. I will have enough liquid tempera paint to have a class or two complete one painting, but not enough for them to also mix a color wheel. One of the greatest materials that I use in my classroom, are not only convenient to distribute to the students' tables, but is reasonably priced, and will last you the entire year! Tempera Cakes! I love tempera cakes- they are used similarly to watercolors but have a greater concentration of color. The downside of tempera cakes is that often times students will paint right through the paper, so warn your students about painting over the same spot on their paper over and over again!

For this assignment I had the students cut a small shape out of a piece of oak tag/ index card and trace it 12 times on their drawing paper in the shape of a wheel. They do have to paint their wheels in correct color order, but if they do make mistakes they are able to re-draw the shapes on their paper before cutting out their wheels. Once they complete their paintings, I had them cut out their shapes and paste them onto piece of black construction paper to eliminate stray marks and create a clean complete look!  This lesson was also from Ms. Peggy Flores and was demonstrated in one of her Crystal videos on color.