Category: Science

Rainbows Day 5 -What Makes a Rainbow

Today we talked about the science behind rainbows.  We learned that all a rainbow needs is light and water so we went outside to try to create some or our own rainbows.  Today we included more rainbow crafts, science, math, literature, and snacks.

What Makes a Rainbow

Discuss: A rainbow needs light and water for us to see it. Show a simple demonstration of how we bend light by using a straight straw and a clear cup that is half filled with water. Even though the straw is straight, it looks bent when we put it into the water. That is just the light bending. When we bend light, it is called “refraction.” Let’s bend some more light.  Show the kids a prism, go outside and used a prism to create a rainbow on a piece of white paper. Why do we see rainbows when it rains? The raindrops are like a tiny prism, bending the light that comes from the sun. So we need both sun (light) and rain (prism) at the same time to make a rainbow in the sky. Let’s do a simple demonstration to see how the sun and water make a rainbow.  We’ll use the hose in the backyard to make a rainbow.  Make sure the sun is behind us and the water is in front of us.

We did experiments from the “Magic School Bus The Mysteries of Rainbow Science Club Kit”.

Read: What Is a Rainbow? By Chris Arvetis and Carole Palmer

Comprehension Questions:

  1. What makes a rainbow? Light and water

Fruit Loop Bagel Breakfast

Materials:

  • Plain Bagels
  • Cream Cheese
  • Fruit Loops

Directions:

  1. spread cream cheese on the bagel
  2. place the fruit loops in the shape of a rainbow

Tissue Paper Rainbow

Materials:

  • colors of tissue papers
  • pencil with a full eraser
  • school glue
  • white cardstock with an outline of a rainbow on it
  • markers or crayons

Directions:

  1. Have the children use the markers or crayons to color in the colors they want their rainbow to look like.
  2. Cut the tissue into 1 inch squares.
  3. Pour some school glue onto a tray or plate.
  4. Have your child take one piece of tissue, and show them how to center (approximately!) the eraser onto it.
  5. Wrap the tissue up around the pencil. 
  6. Dip into the glue.
  7. Hold onto the edges of the tissue, and press the glue tipped end onto the paper, matching up the color from your picture. Slide the pencil out.

Rainbow in a Box

Discuss: Like water drops in falling rain, the CD separates white light into all the colors that make up the rainbow. The colors you see reflecting from a CD are interference colors, like the shifting colors you see on a soap bubble or an oil spill. You can think of light as as being made up of waves-like the waves in the ocean. When light waves reflect off the ridges on your CD, they overlap and interfere with each other. Sometimes the waves add together to make a rainbow.

Materials:

  • CD
  • Box
  • Flashlight

Directions:

  1. Shine a flashlight on an old CD in the bottom of a box turned on it’s side.
  2. Turn off the lights, and move the flashlight across the CD to make the rainbows dance.

Rainbow Addition

Materials:

  • Paper
  • Pen
  • Construction paper

Directions:

  1. Draw an outline of a rainbow on the paper.
  2. Write addition combinations on the blank rainbow. (make sure they are spaced out quite a bit)
  3. Cut the construction paper into rectangles small enough to cover one of the combinations.
  4. Write the answers to the top row of combinations on the red rectangles.
  5. Next row answers are on the orange rectangles. And so on.
  6. Child will look at the combination and find the answer in the colored pieces and place it over the combination. At the end there should be a completed colored rainbow.

I modified the one for A. to counting dots on the white paper and finding the correct number on the colored pieces.

And I modified the tots to matching colors.

Eat the Rainbow

Discuss:

Talk about what different colors of the rainbow that we can eat to be healthy. Fruits and Vegies Then make a chart with the kids that have all of the foods that they suggested written on it.

Materials:

  • Posterboard
  • Markers of crayons
  • Strawberries
  • Cantaloupe
  • Banana
  • Pear
  • Blueberries
  • Red Grapes
  • Kabob Skewers

Directions:

  1. Make a rainbow on a plate or platter with different fruits.

RED – Strawberries
ORANGE – Cantaloupe
YELLOW – Banana
GREEN – Pear
BLUE – Blueberries
VIOLET – Red grapes

    2. Let the children use the kabob sticks to make their rainbow fruit kabobs.

Read: I can eat a Rainbow by Annabel Karmel while they eat

Make a REAL Rainbow

Read: A Rainbow of My Own by Don Freeman

Discuss: Rainbows appear wherever sunlight falls on water or glass.  We used the Rainbow Diagram here to help us with this experiment.

Materials:

  • Glass of water
  • Dark kitchen
  • White Paper
  • Masking Tape
  • Flashlight

Directions:

  1. Fill a glass of water (almost to the top) and place it at the very edge of the counter in a VERY dark kitchen or bathroom.
  2. Place a sheet of plain white paper on the floor a few inches away from the counter.
  3. Put two pieces of masking tape over the front of a flashlight so that the light comes out of a slit about 1/8 inch wide.
  4. Shine this light across and down into the water as shown in the figure. When a narrow beam of light is passed through a glass of water, a spectrum can be seen on a white sheet of paper.
  5. Can you see a small rainbow on the white paper? If not, move the flashlight around a little until you achieve the best results.

Rainbow Symmetry

Discuss: A line of symmetry divides a shape into two identical parts. In some cases, as with a rainbow, you’ll find one line of symmetry down the middle. In other cases, there is more than one, like with eight sections of an orange. So if we paint a rainbow on one side of the paper and then fold it in half it should appear the same on both sides forming a symmetrical rainbow.

Materials:

  • Cardstock folded in half
  • Paint for all the colors of the rainbow

Directions:

  1. Fold the paper in half and open.
  2. Have the kids how to paint half a rainbow on one half of the paper in the right order. 
  3. Fold the paper over and press gently.
  4. Open again to see your rainbow print. 
IMG_0701

Rainbow Celebration Cake

Cake Materials:

  • White cake (2 boxes)
  • 9 in. cake pan
  • Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple GEL food coloring.

Cake Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350F degrees. Spray 9” cake pans. Make the 2 cakes according to the directions.
  2. Divide the batter into 6 bowls (about 1 1/2 cups each.
  3. Then whisk 2 drops of the appropriate food color into each bowl. Pour into the pans and bake for 12 minutes each.
  4. When you remove them from the oven, let them rest on the cooling rack, in the pan, for ten minutes. Then flip, cover, and stash them in the fridge to cool quickly.

Frosting Materials:

  • 2 Cups shortening
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • ½ cup water
  • 2 lbs. Powdered sugar

Frosting Directions:

  1. In large bowl, cream shortening with electric mixer. Add vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add water and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Keep bowl covered with a damp cloth until ready to use.
  2. This icing can be stored 2 weeks. rewhip before using.
IMG_0680I added sugar sprinkles in the shape of a rainbow to it too.

More rainbow fun that we had this week:

Rainbows Day 4 -Double Rainbows

Just last week we saw a double rainbow and I actually got a picture of it with my phone, so we decided to make that day 4 in our rainbow unit study.  We had a rainbow breakfast and lunch and did some more rainbow crafts, math, and science.  The kids loved the mini fruit rainbow pizzas that we had for snack today.

Double Rainbows

Discuss: In a “primary rainbow”, the arc shows red on the outer part, and violet on the inside. This rainbow is caused by light being refracted while entering a droplet of water, then reflected inside on the back of the droplet and refracted again when leaving it. In a double rainbow, a second arc is seen outside the primary arc, and has the order of its colors reversed, red facing toward the other one, in both rainbows. This second rainbow is caused by light reflecting twice inside water droplets. The second arc is also lighter than the first one.

Read: All the Colors of the Rainbow by Allan Fowler

Comprehension Questions:

  1. What is the order of the colors in a rainbow? Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple
  2. What is the order of the colors in the double rainbow on the top? Purple, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red
  3. Have the children draw a double rainbow (top rainbow lighter and in opposite order)

Rainbow Pancake Breakfast

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups buttermilk
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
  • food coloring

Directions:

  1. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.
  2. Lightly beat the eggs with the buttermilk, milk and melted butter.
  3. Just before you are ready to make the pancakes, add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients all at once, stirring just long enough to blend. The batter should be slightly lumpy.
  4. Separate the batter into 6 bowls and added food coloring to make the colors of the rainbow.
  5. Heat a lightly greased griddle or heavy skillet over medium-high heat (375 degrees on an electric griddle).
  6. Pour 1/4 cup batter per pancake onto the griddle or skillet, spacing the pancakes apart so they do not run together.
  7. When bubbles appear on the surface of the pancakes and the undersides are lightly browned, turn and cook for about 2 minutes longer, until lightly browned on the bottom.
IMG_0A said “Look, I made a flower” (so girly)!618

Hand Print Rainbow

Materials:

  • Paint (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple)
  • Poster board

Directions:

  1. Cut the poster board in the shape of a semi-circle.
  2. Have the children put their purple hand prints along the bottom curve.
  3. Then blue hand prints over the purple prints (it’s okay if it overlaps a bit)
  4. Then green, yellow, orange, and red hand prints

Blow It Up

Discuss: Baking soda and the vinegar create an ACID-BASE reaction. When combined/mixed they create a gas – carbon dioxide. Gasses need room to spread out, so the carbon dioxide gas fills the bottle and then moves into the balloon inflating it. A gas can float in the air but we usually can’t see it.

Materials:

  • baking soda
  • vinegar
  • plastic bottle
  • 6 balloons (one of each color)
  • funnels

Directions:

  1. Using your funnel pour vinegar into your bottle. You only need to fill about 1/3 of the bottle.
  2. Using another (dry) funnel pour baking soda into your balloon. Fill the balloon approx. 1/2 way.
  3. Cover the top of the bottle with you balloon. Make sure you don’t let the baking soda spill into the bottle yet.
  4. When ready, lift your balloon and let the baking soda fall into the vinegar.
  5. Watch as the mixture fizzes, bubbles & expands your balloon!

Measure a Rainbow

Materials:

  • Construction Paper in colors of the rainbow
  • Scissors
  • Stapler

Directions:

1. Measure and cut the construction paper into 1” wide strips. Measure and cut each of the strips into the following lengths:

•red ~ 10″
•orange ~ 9”
•yellow ~ 8”
•green ~ 7”
•blue ~ 6”
•purple ~ 5” 

2. Stack all of the strips together in the rainbow order with red on top. Align and staple the aligned end together.

3. Bend and align the other end and staple to form a rainbow!! And that’s it…a fun rainbow with a little bit of measuring practice as a bonus!

Rainbow Spaghetti Lunch

Ingredients:

  • Spaghetti
  • Oil
  • Food Coloring
  • Tomatoes
  • Carrots
  • Croutons
  • Lettuce
  • Rasins
  • Shredded Cabbage

Directions:

  1. Cook a small pot of spaghetti and drained it and tossed it in a couple of teaspoons of oil.
  2. Divided it into 6 bowls and added a some liquid food coloring to each one, and stirred it through.
  3. Serve with a salad make of RED – Tomatoes ORANGE – Carrots YELLOW – Croutons GREEN – Lettuce BLUE – Raisins VIOLET – Shredded Cabbage

Rainbow Wind Catcher

Materials:

  • paper plates
  • paint
  • glue sticks
  • a stapler
  • crepe paper

Directions:

  1. cut paper plates in half.
  2. paint a rainbow on the back sides, both halves. 
  3. after they were dry, use a glue stick to add the streamers.
  4. cut the streamers in half long wise so they measure about 1in. X 10in.
  5. in theory you would add the color of streamer under the color of paint.
  6. glue streamers to the inside of both halves of the plates.
  7. staple the two plates together.
  8. tie a knot in a loop of yarn and then stapled it in when putting the plates together.

Crayon Melting Canvas

Discuss: Why does wax melt? Energy travels from the heated area to the wax, a solid. When the energy hits the wax molecules, it causes them to speed up, resulting in liquid. As the heat is removed, the wax molecules begin to slow down and heat the air around them. As the molecules lose energy they slowly stop moving as much and become a solid again.

Materials:

  • 11×14 canvas
  • hot glue gun & glue stick
  • hair dryer
  • lots of crayons
  • newspaper

Discussion:

  1. Pick out the colors you want to use and line them up until you run out of space.
  2. Using a glue gun, make a line of glue across the crayons (if you want a certain part showing, like the label, be careful to put the glue on the opposite side). Quickly place onto canvas in a line, as shown below, with tips facing down. 
  3. Line your floor with newspaper, place the canvas against the wall, and start blow drying.
  4. Aim the heat right at the middle to lower area of the crayons (where the tips are). Once the wax starts melting, move the dryer around as needed to prevent splattering and get wax to go straight down.  
IMG_0655

Extension:

Kids can do individual crayon melting pictures on cardstock then cut off the crayons.

IMGI tried spelling something with stickers and peeling them off._0594
IMG_05Instead of the wax not showing up under the stickers to make it appear white, the wax spread under the stickers.96

Mini Fruit Pizzas

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 cup butter, softened
  • 3 ounces cream cheese
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 jar Marshmallow Cream
  • 1 block cream cheese
  • Raspberries
  • Manderin Oranges (cut in halves)
  • Banana (sliced and cut in fourths)
  • Green Grapes (cut in halves)
  • Blueberries
  • Plums (sliced and cut in fourths)

Directions:

  1. In a bowl cream butter, 3 ounces cream cheese and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; beat until smooth.
  2. In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture. Stir till soft dough forms.
  3. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours.
  4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
  5. Bake cookies for 8 minutes or until lightly browned and let cool.
  6. Mix 1 jar of marshmallow cream and 1 block of cream cheese for the kids to spread on the cookies.
  7. Cut up the fruit for the kids to make a mini rainbow on their cookies.

More rainbow fun that we had this week:

Rainbows Day 3 -Color Wheel

For the third day of our Rainbow Unit Study we learned that the rainbow colors make up the artist’s color wheel.  We learned about primary colors, secondary colors, and complementary colors.  We did some color mixing science and made some more yummy rainbow snacks. I also introduced a fun sensory tub today.

The Color Wheel

Discuss:

Primary Color- Red, yellow and blue. Primary colors are the 3 colors that can not be mixed or formed by any combination of other colors. All other colors are made from these 3 hues.

Secondary Colors- Green, orange and purple. These are the colors formed by mixing the primary colors.

Complementary colors- are any two colors which are directly opposite each other on the color wheel, such as red and green and red-purple and yellow-green. 

Read: Take a Walk on a Rainbow by Miriam Moss

Comprehension Questions:

  1. What are the primary colors? Red, Yellow, Blue
  2. What are the secondary colors? Green, Orange, Purple
  3. How can you easily find complementary colors on the color wheel? The are opposite each other.

Painting A Color Wheel

I printed off this Color Wheel and let the children paint it with the colors in the correct order.

Color Mixing

Discuss: Ask your child if he has ever heard the word “hypothesis” before. Explain that “hypothesis” is a special word that scientists use for “an idea that you can test.” A hypothesis is a kind of prediction. Explain that when someone makes a hypothesis, he or she uses clues to make a guess about something. Give some examples, such as, “If I drop this basketball on the floor, my hypothesis is that it will bounce.” Or, “When I see dark clouds in the sky, I have a hypothesis that it will rain soon.” Encourage your child to come up with a simple hypothesis or two.  How can we test your hypothesis?

Show a color wheel to look at and discuss. What are the primary colors (red, yellow, blue). Ask them what there hypothesis is about mixing red and yellow? It will make orange. What about yellow and blue? It will make green. What about red and blue? It will make purple.

Materials:

  • White ice cube tray
  • water
  • red, yellow, and blue food coloring
  • 6 clear jars
  • Eye dropper

Directions:

  1. Fill the ice cube tray with water.
  2. Add 1 drop of one color to each section (make some red, yellow, and blue). 
  3. Put it in the freezer at least an hour before the activity.
  4. Fill 6 clear cups with water. Add the red, yellow, and blue food coloring to the cups, one color per cup.
  5. Do you think we can make all the colors of the rainbow with only these three primary colors.
  6. Take out the ice cubes and let them know that they are the same 3 colors that are in the cups, the primary colors.
  7. What do you think will happen if we put a red ice cube into a yellow cup?
  8. Drop it in, then stir. Orange!
  9. What do you think will happen if we added blue to yellow? Green!
  10. Next try red and blue, which makes the purple.
  11. Then the kids will want to see what would happen when we mixed all the colors and make brown.
  12. Line up the colors in order and said.. We made all the colors of the rainbow!

Extension:

  1. Use the red, yellow, and blue cup of colored water to play with.
  2. Use the eye dropper to add the primary colors of water to each section in the ice tray to make new colors.
  3. Let the kids try.

A Colorful Hypothesis


I used the Dinosaur Train A Colorful Hypothesis printout to help teach coloring mixing combinations to the children.

Rainbow Sprite

Ingredients:

  • Sprite
  • Kool-Aid (red, yellow, blue colors)
  • Ice cube tray

Directions:

  1. Make the Kool-Aid according to package directions & then pour some of it into ice trays, a different ice tray for each color.
  2. Add the color of ice cubes to a cup of Sprite. Watch the color the colors mix if you use two different colors of ice cubes.

Rainbow Rice Garden Sensory Tub

Materials:

  • Uncooked rice
  • Food coloring
  • Rubbing alcohol
  • Tub
  • Gardening tools
  • Fake flowers

Directions:

  1. Measure out the rice (6 cups) and put it in a Ziploc bag with about 2 drops of food coloring and 2T of rubbing alcohol. (make red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple)
  2. Mix the rice in the bags to spread the color. Put them on pans to dry in the sun.
  3. Pour each color side by side in a sensory tub in the color of a rainbow.
  4. Add garden tools and gardening gloves and the fake flowers.

Rainbow Cookies

Ingredients:

  • Sugar cookie dough
  • food coloring (all the colors of the rainbow)

Directions:

  1. Divide dough into 6 portions. Tint each with a different food color (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple).
  2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
  3. Roll dough into strips and form your rainbows but pushing the colors together.
  4. Bake cookies for 8 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool and store in an airtight container.

Rainbow Collage

Materials:

  • Crayons
  • Cardstock
  • Felt
  • Paper
  • Feathers
  • Pom poms
  • Ribbon
  • Foam Pieces
  • Glue

Directions:

  1. Have the children pre-color-sort collage supplies.
  2. Draw and color a rainbow on a piece of cardstock.
  3. The children color matched an assortment of stickers, felt, paper, feathers, pom poms, ribbon, and foam pieces onto the rainbow.

More rainbow fun that we had this week:

Rainbows Day 2 -God’s Promise

 Today we learned why we have rainbows.  We reviewed the story of Noah’s Ark focusing on the end where they have the promise from God to never destroy the earth again with a flood.  We played with some Noah’s Ark toys and did some Noah’s Ark Crafts..  We also has some more yummy rainbows and did some more science experiments (the kids favorite).

God’s Promise

Discuss: Genesis 9:13 “I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is a sign of my covenant with you and all the earth.”

After a year of floating, the ark was finally on dry ground. Just a few minutes before, it was filled with growling, barking, honking, purring animals. Now the giant boat sat on a mountain top with the door wide open, the boat was all empty and quiet. All the animals had rushed out the door to fill the earth again. So what was Noah doing? He was gathering rocks. He was so thankful to be alive, he was building an altar to God. So Noah piled up the rocks to build a fire on them. This was the sacrifice Noah offered to God to thank him for saving him and his family. God was pleased with Noah’s sacrifice. But most of all, God was pleased that Noah was truly thankful. So God made a promise to Noah, “Never again will I destroy the world with a flood. I make this covenant with you and with all creatures. From this day on, there will always come a time for planting, and a time for gathering up what was planted. Day will always follow night, the warm days of summer will always follow the cold and snow of winter, as long as the earth shall be.” So God blessed Noah and his family. He told them to have many children to fill the earth with people again. He gave them the plants and the animals for food. Then God said to Noah, “Look up in the sky.” Noah looked up. The bright sun was shining, God made a brilliant rainbow appear. God said to Noah, “You see, I have set my rainbow in the sky. This will be the sign of the covenant I have made with you and all creatures, never again to destroy the earth by a flood. It will always remind us of the promise between you and me.” So, the next time you see a rainbow, you can think of Noah and the flood. Remember that God loves you, and that no matter how bad the storm, there will always come a bright new day. That is God’s promise, and God always keeps his promises.

Read: The First Rainbow By Su Box

Comprehension Questions:

  1. How many animals did God send to Noah on the ark? Two of every animal. (boy and girl)
  2. What did God send as a promise to Noah after they got off of the ark? (A rainbow)

Noah’s Rainbow

Materials:

  • 2 paper plates
  • paint
  • paintbrushes
  • Animals and Noah  (I used some that I had from a coloring book)
  • Scissors
  • Glue

Directions:

  1. First, cut one of the paper plates in half and let your child paint one piece brown.
  2. Paint a rainbow on the top 3/4 of the other plate. 
  3. Color all of the Noah animals and cut them out.
  4. Once everything is dry, staple the brown plate to the rainbow plate so that the rainbow is showing.

Noah’s Ark Play

Discuss: God sent the animals to Noah’s ark 2 by 2 (a boy and a girl).

Directions:

  1. Set up the Little People Ark and put Noah on it.
  2. Line up the animals outside the ark 2 by 2.
  3. Children can count by 2’s to see how many animals are on this ark.

Noah’s Ark ABC Puzzle 

We have a wooden Noah’s Ark puzzle that lines the animals up in ABC order.

Rainbow Lorikeet

Discuss:

This is truly where a picture is better than a thousand words. There intense colors have patches of emerald green, orange midnight blue, dull blue, ruby red,lemon yellow, purple, violet greenish gray. They are a small bird generally 11 to 12 inches long, on average females are generally a bit smaller and younger birds have duller markings. They are said to live over 20 years in the wild. Their vocalization is varied from “screeching” in flight to “chatting” during feeding.

                     

Rainbow Bible Verse

Read and talk about the verse with your child. Have the child draw a rainbow over the verse with crayons.

“I have placed my

rainbow in the clouds.

It is a sign of my covenant

with you and all the earth.”

Genesis 9:13

IMG_0Youngest child’s on the bottom up to the oldest child’s!539

Rainbow Jello

Ingredients:

  • Jello for each color of the rainbow
  • Knox gelatin (6 envelopes)
  • Jello mold or Clear cups

Directions:

  1. Mix the purple jello with an envelope of the knox gelatin.
  2. Pour in two cups of boiling water. Dissolve the gelatin.
  3. Add 1/2 cup of ice. Stir until thick.
  4. Remove any remaining ice cubes and any bubbles that may have formed.
  5. Pour a little into each clear cup and/or mold. Let set in the refrigerator.
  6. Repeat with the blue jello and pour it over the set purple (and then the other colors).

Changing Daisies

Discuss: As the colored water is absorbed, the children will be able to see how the water is absorbed into the plant and will be amazed when the petals of the carnation change color.

Materials:

  • Food Coloring (each color of the rainbow)
  • Water
  • 6 Clear Glasses
  • 6 White Daisies

Directions:

  1. Place 1 tablespoon food coloring and quarter cup of water in each glass.
  2. Place 1 stem of daisies in each glass and wait for a couple of hours.
IMG_0758

More rainbow fun that we had this week:

Rainbows Day 1 -Colors

We spent the first day of our rainbow unit study learning the colors of the rainbow.  We had fun with baking, crafts, reading, science experiments, similes, and math.  The favorite activity for the kids today was definitely the rainbow flower cookies that we made.  The three older kids can now recite all the colors of the rainbow.

Colors of the Rainbow

Discuss: What are the colors in the rainbow? (ROY G. BIV) Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Purple. Newton added indigo and orange to give a total of 7 colors similar to the number of notes in a musical scale and number of days in a week. Indigo is not really a color. It is a shade between blue and violet. Many people omit indigo from the rainbow spectrum because it is not a color and is hard for the human eye to distinguish between the blue and violet.

Read: Liz Makes a Rainbow by Tracey West

Comprehension Questions:

  1. What are the colors of the rainbow? Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple
  2. What is shade of color between blue and purple sometimes called? Indigo

Ordinal Numbers

Directions:

Give the child a blank rainbow and have him listen and follow the directions below as you read them.

Start at the top and color the first arc red.                    Color the fifth arc blue.

Color the fourth arc green.                                           Color the third arc yellow.

Color the second arc orange.                                      Color the sixth arc purple.


Rainbow Color Matching


Make a large rainbow out of poster board.  Place the rainbow on the floor with small items of each color in a basket.  The child places each item on the appropriate colored arc.

Rainbow Similes

Read: What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Ann Schwartz

Discuss: A simile is a figure of speech consisting of a comparison of 2 objects using like or as. Similes tell you what something is LIKE. Similes are in What Makes a Rainbow? “Red LIKE a ladybugs wings.”

Materials:

  • Poster Board
  • Markers or Crayons
  • Printing Paper

Directions:

  1. Pick a color. Describe the color by answering the following…
  2. Tastes like
    Smells like
    Sounds like
    Looks like
    Hot like
    Cold like
  3. Tell in a sentence or group of sentences what this color looks like, sounds like, etc…
  4. Lightly sketch an outline of a large rainbow on the poster board.
  5. Write our poems in the stripes exactly how the children dictate it to you.
  1. Kids can make a smaller version of the Simile Rainbow on a piece of paper.
  2. Kids write the word color over and over for each arc in the rainbow.
IMG_0363

Rainbow Pudding Cups

Ingredients:

  • 6 packages of different colored Jello (purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red.)
  • 6 Cups of Vanilla Ice Cream
  • 6 Cups of Hot Water.
  • Clear glasses
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Directions:

  1. Follow the instructions on the back of the jello box, but instead of adding a cup of cold water, you add a cup of ice cream.
  2. Make sure you pour the pudding in a clear glass, and let each layer set up in the refrigerator before you add the next layer.  
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Rainbow Puzzles


I print off page 8 of this Rainbow Download and let the children cut them out and place them together.

Cotton Ball Rainbow

Materials:

  • Cotton balls
  • White paper cut in a cloud “shape”
  • Construction paper in each color of the rainbow
  • Glue

Directions:

  1. Give child the cloud shape.
  2. Cover the bottom of the cloud with glue.
  3. Child places color paper at the bottom of the cloud.
  4. Add additional glue all over the paper cloud.
  5. Place cotton balls to add “fluff.”

Planting A Rainbow

Read: Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert

Materials:

  • Sugar Cookie Dough
  • Food Coloring
  • Unsweetened cocoa powder
  • Sucker Sticks

Directions:

  1. Divide the dough into 7 parts (one for each color and one for the flower centers)
  2. Color the dough with the food coloring (red, orange, yellow, green blue, purple)
  3. Add a tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder to the dough, for the brown, flower centers.
  4. Roll the dough into 1/2 inch balls.
  5. Place colored balls around the centers, to form flowers, on a greased cookie sheet. Press them together a little, so they stick to each other. T thought he was playing with play dough!
  6. Add a sucker, pushing it through the dough into the center of the flower. 
  7. Bake as normal for sugar cookies (350 degrees Fahrenheit for 10-12 minutes).

Baking Soda & Vinegar

Discuss: When the baking soda and the vinegar mix they create an acid-base reaction and the two chemicals work together to create a gas (the bubbles).  Observe the 3 states of matter: the baking soda is the solid, the vinegar is the liquid, and the bubbles is the gas.

Materials:

  • baking soda
  • vinegar
  • spoons
  • clear cups or containers
  • food coloring
  • a tray to hold any spills

Directions:

  1. Add a few drops of food color to each spoon.
  2. Fill the rest of each spoon with baking soda.
  3. Add ¼ to ½ cup of vinegar to each cup.
  4. Choose a spoon and stir it into one cup of vinegar.
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More rainbow fun that we had this week:

Rainbow Unit Study

In this unit study we learned all about rainbows. This unit has 5 days worth of lessons. We did this unit study with cousins, from tots to 1st grade, but it would be great for Preschool age. This unit study was tons of fun for the cousins, but I guess cousins are always ton of fun whatever their doing!  I made a lapbook for each child with their work from the unit so that they could go back and remember what they learned.

Day 1 Colors of the Rainbow

Day 2 God’s Promise

Day 3 The Color Wheel

Day 4 Double Rainbows

Day 5 What Makes a Rainbow

Rainbow Book List

Book can be read by the child or by the parent to the child, depending on the child’s reading level.

Books I used in the lessons… 

Liz Makes a Rainbow by Tracey West

The First Rainbow By Su Box

Take a Walk on a Rainbow by Miriam Moss

All the Colors of the Rainbow by Allan Fowler

What Is a Rainbow? By Chris Arvetis and Carole Palmer

What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Ann Schwartz

A Rainbow of My Own by Don Freeman

I can eat a Rainbow by Annabel Karmel

Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert

Other age appropriate books…

Noah’s Ark by Barbara Shook Hazen and Diane Muldrow

Singing with Noah by Cissy Padgett

The Rainbow Mystery by Jennifer Dussling

Duckie’s Rainbow by Frances Barry

On Noah’s Ark by Jan Brett

Elmer and the Rainbow by David McKee

The Magic School But Makes a Rainbow by Joanna Cole

Over the Rainbow by Judy Collins

Song List

Roy G Biv by They Might be Giants

Video List 

  • Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! (Season 1 Episode 16) 
  • Elmo’s Rainbow 
  • The Magic School Bus Makes A Rainbow

Here are some of our other Elementary Unit Studies:

Ants Day 6 -Ant Enemies

Today brings us to the end of our ant unit study.  We learned about a few ant enemies, did some literary activities, had more fun with homophones, and ate ants on a log.  We learned a lot about ants this week and had a lot of fun in the process.

Ant Enemies

Discuss:

Anteater- The anteater’s tongue can reach two feet in length, and only 1/2 inch wide. The anteater can cover its tongue in a sticky saliva, allowing the ants to stick to it’s tongue. It can extend and withdraw it’s tongue up to 150 times per minute. When hunting for food, anteaters will use their sharp claws to tear open anthills or rotting wood that might contain ants or termites. Since their eye-sight is poor, they use their noses to smell for food. Then they use their long snouts and tongues to scoop up as many ants and termites as possible. Since they don’t have teeth, they can’t chew the insects. Instead, they swallow them whole. As they eat, they also swallow small pebbles and other debris. These pebbles help them digest the insects by grinding them in the stomach.

Woodpecker- Woodpeckers like to eat ants too. They peck them off of the trees when they climb.

Ant Lion- the ant lion digs a circular sand pit and waits at the bottom. When an ant looks into the pit, the ant lion tosses sand into the air to trip up the ant. The ant stumbles into the pit, and the ant lion grabs it with its large pincers.

Read: Giant Anteater by Sara Antill

Comprehension Questions:

  1. Name an animal that eats ants? Anteater, woodpecker, ant lion
  2. How does the anteater find the ants? The anteater smells the ants.
  3. Why do the ants fall into the ant lion’s pit? The ant lion tosses sand into the air to trip the ant.

Ants on a Log

Ingredients:

  • Celery Sticks
  • Peanut Butter
  • Raisins

Directions:
1) Wash the celery
2) Spread peanut butter in u-shaped part of celery.
3) Press raisins into peanut butter.
4) Eat your Ants on a Log

Aunt Farm

Discuss:

Homophones are words that sound alike but have different meanings (ant the insect and Aunt your relative).

Read: Truman’s Aunt Farm by Jama Kin Rattigan

Comprehension Questions:

  1. What did Truman feed the aunts for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Rice pudding, jelly sandwiches and little hot dogs
  2. True or False; The aunts were not having fun and could not wait to get out of Truman’s house. False
  3. What did Truman’s sign say was the cost of each aunt? Free
  4. What did Aunt Fran get Truman for his birthday? Ant Farm
  5. What was in the package for Truman at the end of the story? Aunt Fran

Directions:

Ant and Aunt

An ant is a small insect that gets into food and usually lives underground.

Your aunt is a woman who is your Mother’s or Father’s sister.

Fill in each sentence with the correct ant or aunt.

  1. There is an ____________ in the sugar bowl.
  2. My brother has _____________’s in his pants.
  3. My ____________ is coming to visit us.
  4. I have an ____________ who lives far away.
  5. An ____________ has six legs.
  6. My friends gets birthday presents from two ____________’s.
  7. Does your _____________ live near here?
  8. There must be a hundred ______________s in that hill.
  9. Please get the ____________ off that cracker.

Write your own sentence using the words ant and aunt.

Here are the other days of our Ant Unit Study:

Ant Unit Study

Day 1 Ant Anatomy

Day 2 Ant Live Cycle

Day 3 Ant Jobs

Day 4 Ant Colony

Day 5 Types of Ants

Day 6 Ant Enemies

Ants Day 5 -Types of Ants

For this day we learned a few different types of ants.  We also had fun with homophones and counting to 100.  The boys love the books that you can sing with, so I found the big book of The Ants Go Marching at the library for them.

Types of Ants

Discuss: There are over 10,000 kinds of ants. We will learn about a few of them today.Leafcutter Ant -Leafcutter ants are also known as fungus gardening ants. The leafcutter workers snip off pieces of the plant and carry the leaf bits back to their underground nest. Then the ants chew the leaves, and use the chewed up leaf bits as a substrate on which to grow fungus. The ants eat that fungus. When a queen begins a new colony, she brings a starter culture of fungus with her to the new nest site. 

Army Ant -Army ants are nomads. They don’t make permanent nests, but instead move into empty rodent nests or holes in the ground. Army ants are typically nocturnal, with nearly blind workers. These carnivores raid other ant nests at night, stinging their prey. When the queen begins laying new eggs and the larvae start pupating, the army ants have to stay in one place for a while. As soon as the eggs hatch and the new workers emerge, the colony moves on. When on the move, workers carry the colony’s young. 

Carpenter Ant -Carpenter ants don’t actually eat the wood like termites do, but they do excavate nests and tunnels in people’s homes. Carpenter ants prefer moist wood, so if you’ve had a leak or flood in your home, be on the lookout for them to move in. Carpenter ants aren’t always pests, though. They actually provide an important service in the ecological cycle as decomposers of dead wood. 

Slave Maker Ant -One method used by slavemaking ants is replacing the queen of the captive colony. The queen of an established slavemaking colony will lay eggs and produce new queens who then will leave the colony to develop their own colonies. The young slavemaking queen will wait outside of the colony she is leaving and follow a group of raiding slave makers into her new colony. As the worker slavemakers raid this new colony for eggs, the queen takes advantage of the battle by using it to sneak into the colony. Once she finds the other queen, she kills her and takes her place as the new queen. The new queen mimics the old queen by consuming pheromones from her body and releasing them to the attending ants. This new queen having mated with a slavemaking male ants earlier begins to lay new slavemakers eggs. Ant colonies invaded by slavemakers are quickly overcome and forced to support the slavemaking colony. 

Fire Ant -Fire ants defend their nests aggressively, and will swarm anything that they think is a threat. The bites and stings of fire ants are said to feel like you’re being set on fire – thus the nickname. Fire ants build mounds, usually in open, sunny places, so parks, farms, and golf courses are particularly vulnerable to fire ant infestations. 

Harvester Ant -Harvester ants inhabit deserts and prairies, where they harvest plant seeds for food. They store the seeds in underground nests. If the seeds get wet, the harvester ant workers will carry the food above ground to dry them and keep them from germinating. Like fire ants, harvester ants will defend their nest by inflicting painful bites and venomous stings. 

Read: Ant by Rebecca Stefoff

Comprehension Questions:

  1. Name a few different kinds of ants?
  2. What kind of ant have fungus gardens? Leafcutter Ants
  3. What kind of ant feels like your on fire when your bitten? Fire Ant

Different Kinds of Ants

We used page 5 of this download to review the Different Kinds of Ants.  Then we used pages 23 and 24 of the same download to make a Kinds of Ants Matchbook.

Ant Word Search

We used did the Ant Word Search for fun today.  Plus it has some interesting facts about Argentine Ants.

The Ants Go Marching

Read:  The Ants Go Marching! by Dan Crisp

Directions:

Use the Counting Practice worksheet for counting by 1’s through 10’s.

Ant Aunt Homophones

Discuss:

Homophones are words that sound alike but have different meanings (ant the insect and Aunt your relative).

Read: Dear Deer by Gene Barretta

Comprehension Questions:

1. Aunt Ant meets a moose. Can you think of a homophone for moose?

2. Aunt Ant sees a ewe. Can you think of a homophone for ewe?

3. Aunt Ant sees a horse. Can you think of a homophone for horse?

4. The bat hangs from his feet. Can you think of a homophone for feet?

5. The monkey hangs from his tale. Can you think of a homophone for tail?

6. Aunt Ant sees a doe. Can you think of a homophone for doe?

7. Aunt Ant shares a seesaw with a toad. Can you think of a homophone for toad?

8. Aunt Ant is looking at a great big whale. Can you think of a homophone for whale?

9. Aunt Ant is looking at a huge bear. Can you think of a homophone for bear?

10. Aunt Ant sees a bee fly away. Can you think of a homophone for bee?

 11. Aunt ant sees two gnus. Can you think of a homophone for gnus?

Activity:

We made homophone matches using clipart online. Split the matches between me and the J and have him pick up a card and tell me what it was… I respond by saying, “but I have_____”. He also liked playing memory with the homophone matches!

Here are the other days of our Ant Unit Study:

Ant Unit Study

Day 1 Ant Anatomy

Day 2 Ant Live Cycle

Day 3 Ant Jobs

Day 4 Ant Colony

Day 5 Types of Ants

Day 6 Ant Enemies

Ants Day 4: Ant Colony

Today we learned about the ant colony and did a science experiment outside. J loves science so we try to fit it in everyday that we can. We also had a fun ant hill craft and snack. T loves snacks, but I try not to make too many sweet ones!

Ant Colony

Discuss: How an Ant Colony Starts:

1) After hot summer rain, a young queen takes off on her wedding flight. She flies into a cloud of male ants and mates in the air.

2) Afterward, all the males die, and the queen returns to the earth. She breaks her wings off by rubbing them on the ground.

3) Then she digs a hole in the soft, moist earth and starts laying eggs. She will never leave the nest again.

4) During the next 3 months, the eggs develop through four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult ant.

5) After they have hatched, the first workers assume the duties of the colony– searching for food and protecting the queen.

Most ant species build underground nests. Worker ants dig tunnels and chambers, in the soil. Workers add more tunnels and chambers to the nest, as the colony grows. If you watch ants closely, you will see that they really do communicate with each other! Ant colonies can grow to be quite large. Some tropical ants build downward to make more rooms. Their nests can reach twenty feet deep. A group of nests can cover an area as large as a tennis court. Millions of ants can live in the big nests.

Chambers-

  • The queen has her own chamber for laying eggs.
  • Some chambers are nurseries for the growing young ants.
  • Food is stored in other chambers.
  • Still other chambers are resting places for hard-working ants.

Read: Ant Cities by Arthur Dorros

Thinking Skills:

  1. In economics, what does it mean to be interdependent? People are interdependent when they depend on each other to provide the goods and services they use.
  2. In what way does an ant city illustrate interdependence? The ants in an ant city have certain jobs.They all depend on each other  for survival.
  3. What are some of the special jobs done by the ants? Queen – lays eggs; Workers – do all the work in the ant city and also fight to protect the nest
  4. What would happen if the different types of ants didn’t do their special jobs? The ants could not survive unless they worked together.
  5. What are some of the special jobs in your city or community that people do? Teachers, electricians, pastors, doctors, mail carriers, police officers, farmers, store owners, etc.
  6. How do these people in your community depend on one another? The people in the community have certain jobs. Then, they exchange the money they earn and pay others for the goods and services that are provided. All of us are interdependent in that we rely on others to provide most of the goods and services we use.
  7. Is it good to be interdependent? Specializing in production and then trading to get the goods and services one wants does make production more efficient, providing society with more goods and services. Usually, this is good for everyone. But sometimes interdependence can be troublesome. For example, our country relies heavily on oil produced from other countries. In most cases, that is not a problem, but when there is political instability, prices may rise dramatically and our dependence becomes very costly.

Ant Hill

Materials:

  • Brown Construction Paper
  • Black and White Paint
  • Paint Brush

Directions:

  1. Cut out the brown paper in the form of a hill.
  2. Paint black ant tunnels going down and side to side. Let it dry.
  3. Use your finger to make fingerprint ants with white paint on the black tunnels. Then J wanted to decide what room would be best for each of the ant rooms so I wrote down what he decided.
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Study Ants

Directions: Go for a walk and look for ants. What are they doing? Follow them back to their homes. 

Have the child divide the plate into fourths with a marker. 

Set out a plate of 4 different foods (9 pieces/ crumbs of each food) near the anthill (away from the house). Predict what they will like the best. 

At the end of the day go out and check up on the plate to see if any ants have come for a meal. What did they like best? 

We used this Ant Graph to record the results.

Ant Hill In A Cup

Materials:

  • Clear plastic cups
  • Chocolate pudding
  • Graham crackers
  • Ziploc bag
  • Chocolate sprinkles

Directions:

  1. First put a layer of chocolate pudding into the cup for the “dirt”.
  2. Then crush up graham crackers in a plastic ziploc bag and poured the crumbs into the cup for the anthill “sand”.
  3. Last, they added chocolate sprinkles for the “ants”.
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Here are the other days of our Ant Unit Study:

Ant Unit Study

Day 1 Ant Anatomy

Day 2 Ant Live Cycle

Day 3 Ant Jobs

Day 4 Ant Colony

Day 5 Types of Ants

Day 6 Ant Enemies

Ants Day 3 -Ant Jobs

For today we learned about the different ant jobs.  We also studied Proverbs 6:6 and talked about working diligently.  We learned today with some literature, writing, math, crafts and a picnic lunch. The boys enjoy eating lunch outside.

Ant Jobs

Discuss: There are three main ant jobs; queen ant, worker ants, and male ants.

Queen Ant- Queen ant lays all the eggs and she is the mother of all the ants in the nest. All queens start out with wings. All have large abdomen’s to produce eggs. Some can lay millions of eggs per year.

Male Ants- All males have wings and do no work in the colony. They can be seen for only a few weeks in the summer while they mate with the queen.

Worker Ants- All workers are female, but they do not lay eggs. Females are the smallest ants, they do all the chores: clean the nest, gather food, take care of the babies and defend the colony. Some species such as carpenter ants and fire ants have several sizes of workers; the larger workers have different job duties than the smaller workers.

Worker Jobs- Workers have many different jobs to do. They begin their work by cleaning themselves. A couple days later they start sharing food and licking each other. Here are a some of the different jobs done by the worker ants.

Queen Tender- Young ants help the queen deliver her eggs by grabbing the eggs with their mandibles.

Nurse Ant- Young ants lick larvae so they do not dry out, and feed them so they grow.

Tunnel Diggers- Young ants dig tunnels and new chambers to store eggs and larvae and food.

Guard- These ants stand near the entrance of the nest, blocking strange ants from entering.

Foragers- The oldest ants search for food. Most foragers search within 50 feet of the nest, but if food is scarce, they may travel thousands of feet.

Read: Ant Colony by Kathy Furgang

Comprehension Questions:

  1. What are the three types of ants? Queen ant, male ants, worker ants
  2. What does the queen ant do? Lay the eggs
  3. What do the worker ants do? Take care of baby ants, dig tunnels, guard nest an forage for food

Things I Can Remember

We used the Things I Can Remember to Do Without Being Told ant writing paper for this activity.  We talked about how ants just know what to do, there is no one ant in charge.  Then we talked about what J could do without being told.

Aesop’s Fable: The Ant and The Grasshopper

Discuss:

In Bible times and pioneer days, almost every family had to plant a garden in the spring in order to have enough food for the next winter. Ants also work to prepare for future needs, gathering and storing food in warm weather, before winter comes.

It [the ant] has no commander, no overseer or ruler, the ant stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. (Proverbs 6:7)

Ants, known for being hard workers, are commended by God for their initiative. Ants have no leader—no commander to direct them, no overseer to inspect their work, no ruler to prod them on. People should learn from the ant and not act only when commanded.

Read: The Ant and the Grasshopper by Mark White

  • Who are the two characters in the story?
  • Why is the Ant working so hard?
  • Why is the grasshopper telling him to stop?
  • When winter comes what is the grasshopper’s problem?
  • How does he solve his problem?
  • What lesson does he learn from this experience?

Directions:

We used page 41 of this download for our Aesop’s Fable story.

Picnic Ant Place Mat

Read: Ants at the Picnic by Michael Dahl

Discuss:

  1. Fun Facts on page 24 of Ants at the Picnic by Michael Dahl
  2. Find the Numbers on page 24 of Ants at the Picnic by Michael Dahl
  3. Get your bag of tiny ants and estimate how many ants you have. Then counting ants by 10’s pull out a large quantity of plastic ants. Children take a handful of plastic ants and place them in groups of tens on the placemat, then record the number of ants.
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Materials:

  • Red and White Construction Paper
  • Black Paint
  • Black Marker
  • Clear Con-Tact Paper
  • Scissors

Instructions:
1. Fold the white paper in half and cut lines from the folded side to the other side (but stop cutting about an inch from the side). Cut lines about an inch apart.

2. Weave the red strips through the white strips of paper by going over the first piece then under the next piece and so on, alternating the rows. Keep the red pieces as close together as possible. 

3. Continue weaving your paper pieces until you have used all the red pieces of paper or until all of the white strips are full.

4. Add a couple of ants to your picnic place mat by dipping a fingertip into black paint and making three overlapping fingerprints to form an ant’s body. 

5. Let the paint dry and then use the black marker to draw on six legs and antennae.

6. Finish the place mat by cutting two pieces of clear Con-Tact paper so they are at least and in larger all around than your place mat. Pull the paper backing off of one piece of cut Con-Tact paper. Carefully lay this piece, sticky side down, on top of your place mat. Smooth out all air bubbles as you lay it down. Now, flip over your place mat and cover the backside. Trim the edges of the Con-Tact paper about half an inch bigger than the place mat. Your picnic place mat is now ready to use!

Then we had a picnic lunch!

Proverbs 6:6

Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! (Proverbs 6:6)

  • Who wrote this verse? King Solomon
  • What does it mean? to be a hard worker like the ant
  • Does God want us to walk on all fours like ants do? no
  • What can we learn from ants? to work hard with no one telling us what to do

Physical traits describe someone’s appearance (tall, skinny, blue-eyed, curly-haired, petite, etc.). Character traits describe someone’s personality (brave, stubborn, hard worker, polite, shy, etc.). What do you think God wants us to learn about ants? Physical traits or character traits?

 Directions:  We used our Bible and page 26 from this download for our Proverbs 6:6 Bible verse.

Here are the other days of our Ant Unit Study:

Ant Unit Study

Day 1 Ant Anatomy

Day 2 Ant Live Cycle

Day 3 Ant Jobs

Day 4 Ant Colony

Day 5 Types of Ants

Day 6 Ant Enemies

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