Rainbows are beautiful and magical and are where unicorns live. I want a unicorn. Therefore, I want to be a rainbow. But we all know that can’t happen, so I’ll teach about them in my class! I did Rainbow Week many years ago and loved it, so I knew I had to share our rainbow ideas for the classroom! Rainbows are a great kick-off to spring, and they tie in perfectly with a unit on weather! And seriously, who doesn’t love rainbows? At the end of our rainbow research project, I was impressed by how much we learned about rainbows! We became experts on the topic, and we now fully understand why we can’t find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!
For our rainbows week, we used our Rainbow Research Project!
This creation contains everything you need for your rainbows research project in color and blackline! Also includes math and literacy centers and suggested books to read!
Rainbow Ideas For The Classroom: Research And Science
As with all of our research projects, we kick off with our schema map!
The schema maps start off empty, and we add our Schema or what we know about rainbows. Then, as we learn about rainbows, we add new learning, and we address any misconceptions!
We use graphic organizers to record our learning. The research is done with read-alouds and videos!
Explicit vocabulary instruction is built into all of our research projects, so vocabulary is taught throughout the unit. But we do use labeling activities for even more vocabulary instruction.
One of the final things we do as part of our Rainbows week is a true-false sort. These true-false sorts add some higher-order thinking to our learning, and they provide opportunities for great conversations!
Of course, we are introduced to ROY G BIV to learn the colors of the rainbow! We make a ROY G BIV portrait! And to add some silliness and fun to rainbow week ideas we wear rainbow wigs and make rainbow hair hats!
Rainbow Week Ideas: Science Lessons
A favorite rainbow science lesson is the walking rainbow. This lesson shows kids how colors mix to make new colors! And it ends up making a beautiful rainbow! You need cups, water, food coloring, and paper towels!
Rainbow Ideas For The Classroom: Art Projects
Of course there are so many great art projects that involve rainbows. Our favorite is, of course, torn paper rainbows! One year, we actually did a GIANT-torn paper rainbow that the kids worked on as a class. It took them a week to finish, but it was so cool (and HEAVY!)!
Now we do individual torn paper rainbows. I do them on black construction paper because I love how it makes the colors pop!
Another fun project is handprint rainbows! We love anything that involves painting hands and feet!
And we made marshmallow rainbows. The kids dipped marshmallows into paint and painted rainbows!
Rainbow Week Ideas: Snack!
For our rainbow week snack, we made rainbow toast. We added food coloring to the milk, brushed the milk onto the toast, and toasted it in our toaster oven. Beautiful and delicious!
Rainbow Week Ideas: Math And Literacy Centers
We made a rainbow sensory bin using elbow macaroni, food coloring and rubbing alcohol.
Rainbow Week Ideas: FREE FILES!
For more ideas and resources, check out these posts:
