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:
- What are the colors of the rainbow? Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple
- 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:
- Pick a color. Describe the color by answering the following…
- Tastes like
Smells like
Sounds like
Looks like
Hot like
Cold like - Tell in a sentence or group of sentences what this color looks like, sounds like, etc…
- Lightly sketch an outline of a large rainbow on the poster board.
- Write our poems in the stripes exactly how the children dictate it to you.
- Kids can make a smaller version of the Simile Rainbow on a piece of paper.
- Kids write the word color over and over for each arc in the rainbow.
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
Directions:
- 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.
- 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.
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:
- Give child the cloud shape.
- Cover the bottom of the cloud with glue.
- Child places color paper at the bottom of the cloud.
- Add additional glue all over the paper cloud.
- 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:
- Divide the dough into 7 parts (one for each color and one for the flower centers)
- Color the dough with the food coloring (red, orange, yellow, green blue, purple)
- Add a tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder to the dough, for the brown, flower centers.
- Roll the dough into 1/2 inch balls.
- 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!
- Add a sucker, pushing it through the dough into the center of the flower.
- 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:
- Add a few drops of food color to each spoon.
- Fill the rest of each spoon with baking soda.
- Add ¼ to ½ cup of vinegar to each cup.
- Choose a spoon and stir it into one cup of vinegar.
More rainbow fun that we had this week:
