Week 16 Rainbows

Rainbows - I love rainbows and the happiness I feel when seeing one.

Objectives: learn how rainbows are made, learn the order of the colors in a rainbow

We spent a lot of time discussing how rainbows are made last summer.  So my daughter already had a basic understanding. We read Rainbows by Jacqueline Dwyer from the series Nature Books. It was in the 551.567 section at the library. We also own a wonderful book called What Makes a Rainbow by Betty Ann Schwartz.  This simple board book talks about rain and sunshine making a rainbow. It even covers all the colors in the rainbow and animals which are those colors.  Below is a youtube video which covers all the same information.

Salt Painting
We tried salt painting from the blog Juggling With Kids. I let the glue dry before painting and I think that was a mistake.  Although the painting was still very beautiful and vibrant.

 We listed what order the colors go in as we colored our rainbow.

Grandma School
This week we started something called "Grandma School" where we Google Chat with Grandma and she teaches a lesson.  This was awesome! Grandma shared a flannel story about a turkey that needed to work on his temper, throughout the story the turkey's feathers changed color and in the end he has a rainbow of feathers. Find the Turkey with the Terrible Temper here. For Grandma School we also mixed colors to make a rainbow with playdough.

I was disappointed with the play dough recipe I used.  Here is a different recipe that works much better from The Imagination Tree:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups plain flour (all purpose)
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup salt                          
• 2 tablespoons cream of tartar
• Up to 1.5 cups boiling water
• food coloring (optional)

 Directions:

• Mix the flour, salt, cream of tartar and oil in a large mixing bowl
• Add the boiling water
• Stir continuously until it becomes a sticky, combined dough
• Add the food coloring
• Allow it to cool down then take it out of the bowl and knead it vigorously for a couple of minutes until all of the stickiness has gone. * This is the most important part of the process, so keep at it until it’s the perfect consistency!*
• (If it remains a little sticky then add a touch more flour until just right)

 Here's our beautiful rainbow, we weren't ready with purple yet.  Thanks Grandma!

Kitten Rainbow

I found a very cute rainbow flannel board poem, so I made it.  These silly cats get too curious and cover themselves in paint, like a rainbow. You can find the poem and some suggestions for presenting it at Read Rabbit Read.

 After we read through our Kitten Rainbow story a couple times we did a color sort, matching our items with the cats.  I found random items in my craft room.  If we had been in the toy room I would have held up a cat and asked her to find objects that matched the cat.

Jello Jigglers

 Lastly, we made heart shaped jello.  I had the intention of doing a rainbow of jello, but I decided to keep it simple. Half was gone in an instant.  Somehow shapes make jello more delicious.  But my toddler was sick and so this was perfect for her sore throat.