There are moments in teaching when children lead us into spaces of wonder we could never have planned. The revisiting of color theory through light was one of those moments—a slow, unfolding dance of curiosity, testing, and discovery.
In the atelier, our journey began as so many do: with paint. The children had spent days mixing colors, brushing, stirring, layering, and naming the combinations that emerged. They had theories about which colors could make others disappear, which ones “hid” under layers, and which shone through no matter what. They learned that yellow could brighten a muddy brown, that red often dominated, that white could make everything “feel lighter.” We had explored these ideas deeply, chronicling their reflections and the visible traces of their thinking in photographs and notes.
But the story didn’t end there.
The following week, one of the children noticed a small patch of color reflected from the window—sunlight filtering through a piece of tissue paper taped to the glass. That tiny spark ignited something new: What happens when color is made of light?
Soon, the overhead projector became the center of our revisiting journey.
Color as Light, Light as Inquiry
The children gathered around the projector table with quiet anticipation. I watched as they began to experiment—stacking colored transparencies, overlapping red and blue to see if purple would appear, just as it had when they mixed paint. There was an unspoken hypothesis in the air: Would the colors behave the same way?
They worked in pairs, holding up swatches of color to compare. A child laid a small transparency of yellow over a square of blue, and a ripple of surprise filled the room as green appeared on the wall. Another child placed red over yellow, whispering softly to a friend before both looked up to see the resulting orange glow radiating back at them. Their bodies leaned toward the wall, captivated by the transformation.
They were not just observing color; they were living inside it.
This was more than a science lesson. It was an embodied exploration of theory, memory, and meaning. The children were returning to an idea they knew—color mixing—but entering it through a new medium, one that shimmered and shifted with every movement. The projector offered them a new lens to re-examine what they thought they understood.
They began comparing their light discoveries with the paint mixtures they had previously created. Some brought their dried paint samples to the projector, holding them against the illuminated wall. I could see their faces turn with recognition and confusion—sometimes the colors matched perfectly, and sometimes they didn’t.
“What happened?” one child murmured, staring at the two greens that looked nothing alike.
The question lingered in the air.
This was the heart of revisiting: not finding the same result, but discovering the difference.
The Layered Language of Color
The projector became a communal canvas. The children began layering transparencies, plastic lids, and pieces of colored film. They experimented with shadows—learning that even darkness could be shaped and softened. Some children held their hands over the light beam, noticing the warm hue that radiated through their skin.
They discovered that layering colors with light was not the same as layering paint. In paint, the colors merged and thickened, often dulling into brown. But with light, they brightened and multiplied, forming colors that felt alive.
This revelation sparked a new wave of inquiry. The children began naming their new discoveries: “water green,” “sunset orange,” “cotton candy pink.” These names were not technical—they were felt.
I stood nearby, documenting, listening, and learning. I could see the aesthetic intelligence forming—children learning to see not just with their eyes, but with their emotions, their bodies, their whole sense of being.
A Toddler’s Light Journey
At home, I’ve watched this exploration take on another life. My toddler—too young for words, but full of expressive wonder—has become deeply engaged in his own revisiting journey into light and color.
He began with color paddles, holding them up to his eyes and watching the world shift through red, blue, and yellow lenses. His fascination was contagious—his whole face lit up each time the room changed hue. Soon, he discovered that stacking the paddles made new colors appear. He didn’t need words to tell me his excitement; it was in the way he laughed, the way his eyes widened, the way he pointed urgently toward the wall as if to say, Look! Look what I made!
Now, the overhead projector has become part of our home landscape. He places colored cups and lids on top, runs to the wall to touch the reflections, and looks back at me with pure delight. Sometimes he moves his hands through the light, tracing the outlines of colors that only exist for a fleeting moment.
In those gestures, I see the essence of revisiting—how learning revisits us, even when we’re not in the classroom. His nonverbal communication reminds me that meaning making is not confined to language. It’s in movement, in gaze, in shared joy. It’s in the silent conversation between the hand and the beam of light.
He is constructing knowledge through play, but he is also constructing identity—becoming a scientist, an artist, a philosopher of light.
The Pedagogy of Revisiting
When I think about these moments—both in the classroom and at home—I am reminded that revisiting is not repetition. It is renewal.
Revisiting allows children to deepen their theories, to cross boundaries between materials, and to encounter familiar ideas with new possibilities. Through light and color, the children were not just learning about physics or art—they were engaging in an epistemological journey. They were asking: How do I know what I know? And what happens when I see it differently?
These are profound questions for any learner—child or adult. They remind me that learning is cyclical, not linear. Ideas return, change shape, and find new expression over time.
In documenting these experiences, I realized that my role as an educator is not to provide answers, but to create the conditions where wonder can return—to curate spaces where children can encounter their own thinking again, illuminated in a new light.
A Call to Reflect and Revisit
As educators, families, and companions in children’s learning, we are invited to revisit alongside them—to see how ideas evolve when we slow down and look again.
So I ask:
What might you rediscover if you returned to an old idea through a new material?
How might light reveal what paint could not?
What might children teach us about perception, if we simply watched more closely?
Let us continue to nurture these spaces of transformation—where color becomes a dialogue between the seen and unseen, where learning is illuminated from within.
Read More
Preorder the Book you can get 20% discount until November 30 2025
