Rainbows
Have you ever seen a rainbow? What colours is it made from? How many different colours are there in a rainbow? We're going to count them, sing about them, draw them and see if we can find them outside!
Nature's Rainbow Ramble
We are going to make our own rainbows today from treasure we find around us. Can you see anything red in your room / house? Point it out to your adult. Red is often used as a colour to warn us that something might be dangerous, so we have to be careful what we collect today as they might break easily or be poisonous! Check with your adult before picking things up. Let’s go on a rainbow hunt and see what we can find.
Encourage your child to join in with the words and actions.
Let's Go Outside
Now we are going to go outside to look at nature's colours and see if we can find our rainbows there. Go into your garden or for a walk in a local park. Take photos of the flowers and plants you see. If you adult says that you can, why not collect flower petals on a piece of card with double-sided sticky tape on it? Try to find as many colours as possible and put petals of the same colour together. Eventually you’ll make you own ‘rainbow of nature!
While you’re walking outside, why not play ‘I spy’ with colours. I see something that is yellow – what could that be?
Painting Rainbows
Now we are going to use paint to make rainbows. Set up your painting area, cover the table or floor with newspaper and get some water. You should also prepare a bowl to wash your hands in as this could get messy!!! We can paint rainbows in many ways. Why not try painting your hands first. which colour are you going to start with? Paint your hand and print it onto the paper then try to make a rainbow shape with your hand prints. What happens when you mix two different colours of paint together? Try yellow and red (start with more yellow and add a little red); yellow and blue (again start with more yellow and add a little blue at a time); red and blue (this can be hard to achieve purple but start with more red!!) What colours do you get? Experiment with other colours and see what mixing them creates. Then paint your own picture using the colours of the rainbow!
You will need: Water soluble paint, (finger paints work well as do poster paint), paintbrushes, water, bowl, paper (the back of wallpaper or lining paper works well), newspaper and an old shirt/overall.
Extension
On a sunny day you can make rainbows using a fine mist of water from a plant sprayer or a hose pipe, make a very fine mist and experiment to find the rainbows, you will need to be outdoors for this to work best. Shining a torch light through a glass of water can also produce rainbows, play with the angle of the light and see what you can find. Remembering the order of the colours of the rainbow using an acronym – Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain - Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. Can you make up your own acronym to remember it by?