Rainbows at The Virtual Vine

A Rainbow of My Own ~ Don Freeman

What Makes a Rainbow? ~ Betty Ann Schwartz

All the Colors of the Rainbow ~ Allan Fowler

Planting a Rainbow ~ Lois Ehlert

The Rainbow Goblins ~ Ul De Rico

Rainbow Magic: Heather the Violet Fairy ~ Daisy Meadows

Rainbow Magic: Inky the Indigo Fairy ~ Daisy Meadows

Rainbow Magic ~ Sky the Blue Fairy ~ Daisy Meadows

Rainbow Magic: Amber the Orange Fairy ~ Daisy Meadows

Rainbow Magic: Ruby the Red Fairy ~ Daisy Meadows

Rainbow Magic: Sunny the Yellow Fairy ~ Daisy Meadows

Rainbow Magic: Fern the Green Fairy ~ Daisy Meadows

A Rainbow of Friends ~ P.K. Hallinan

The Magic School Bus Makes a Rainbow: A Book About Color ~ Joanna Cole

Rainbow Rob ~ Roger Priddy

Duckie's Rainbow ~ Frances Barry

The Crayola Rainbow Colors Book ~ Salina Yoon

The Little Hawaiian Rainbow ~ Stacey Daum

Maisy's Rainbow Dream ~ Lucy Cousins

A Rainbow at Night: The World in Words and Pictures by Navajo Children ~ Bruce Hucko

A Rainbow All Around Me ~ Sandra Pinkney

Rainbow Duck ~ Yvette Lodge

Snappy Little Colors: Discover a Rainbow of Colors ~ Dugald Steer

Timothy Whale's Rainbow ~ Darrell Wiskur

The Rainbow Fish is a coordinating unit.

Rainbows appear when the sun shines on droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere.

They form an arc with red on the outside and violet on the inside.

In rare cases a second, fainter rainbow appears with the colors opposite ... violet on the outside and red on the inside.

The colors are sequenced red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

"Roy G. Biv" is a popular way to remember the order of the colors.

Issac Newton originally identified only 5 colors of the spectrum, leaving out indigo and orange.

Later Newton added indigo and orange to give a total of 7 colors similar to the number of notes in a musical scale, number of days in a week, etc.

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.

Indigo may also be know as blue violet.

Not all rainbows are arcs.

Bulletin Board: When I heard this described I just couldn't imagine it, but then I saw a photo somewhere on the 'net of it and it is so cute! Have the children make chain links for each color of the rainbow out of colored construction paper. Then staple them onto the bulletin board in the shape of a rainbow. Have a cloud at each end of the rainbow. It turns out so cute! Then pick a title like "Color Us Happy!", "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", "Kindergarten (or Fun or Learning) Is All the Colors of the Rainbow", "Our Many Colored Days", "Our Rainbow World", "Rainbows Rock" or something.

Letter Recognition: Print this page for students to practice Letter R recognition. Circle the letters using a rrrrrrred crayon. :) After their paper has been checked for accuracy, they can color their rrrrrrainbow.

Letter R Recognition

Letter R Rainbow: This rainbow was created to reinforce the /r/ sound. The student was given a page of pictures and only those that began with /r/ were to be glued on the raindrops. (The pictures were from an old phonics worksheet that had been reduced in size on the copy machine.) So you've got a rrrrrainbow with rrrraindrops dripping with all these rrrrr pictures! :)

The rainbow itself is one that I drew off on a paperplate, clouds included. Then I painted a model for them to go by and explained how to stay in the lines. Once it was dry, they added the clouds which are cottonballs pulled apart and glued on. The raindrops were cut using the Ellison machine. It has 3 sizes on a die and I think this is the largest size. I added the strands of icicle material with scotch tape because that was easier than trying to use glue and waiting on it to dry. This is a multi-step project and does take a while, so we did this rainbow one day and the raindrops the next.

ABC Match: Print on cardstock and laminate for students to practice matching capital to lowercase letters ... or use as flashcards.

Rainbow ABC Match

Rhyming Rainbows: These rainbows were created to reinforce rhyming words. And boy, what a rhyming lesson this was! Much more than I ever thought it would be! :) You can see the directions for creating the rainbow itself above. My students painted one arc and then while it dried, we worked on creating the raindrops. Each raindrop has a rhyming pair, one picture on each side. I had a whole page of pictures that I'd copied out of The Mailbox that were just the right size and I cut them apart and spread them out on the table (we're working in a small group). Each student got a turn to make a rhyming pair for a raindrop. If they made their rhyming pair, they glued the pictures on while the others took their turn. For those who were having problems rhyming (which a couple of mine did), I gave them 3 pictures, said the picture names stressing the ending sounds, and let them choose the pair from those 3 pictures. If they missed it, I went to the next person. Somehow, they all managed to get about the same number of raindrops. And they were motivated to find those rhyming pairs because they wanted those raindrops! :)

Board game: I also created a blank board game to be used for whatever skill. My Ks love playing this type of game for reviewing letters, sounds, numbers, shapes, etc. So I created a rainbow board. I painted a huge rainbow on a piece of poster board with 14 dots across the arcs. The dots were made with Bingo daubers. They have to go from one side of the rainbow to the other. The person that gets to the other side first wins. I'm going to use bears for the markers. Got the idea from the Care Bears. :) I also added some die-cut raindrops to the bottom. I used the board with the rainbow ABC matching cards from above for review of letters/sounds. *Got the picture, forgot the Bears! :)

Color Words: Print and color

Rainbow Color Words

Ordinals: Print and color. (Same sheet, two different formats)

Rainbow Ordinals 1

Rainbow Ordinals 2

Rainbow Colors

Rainbow purple,

Rainbow blue,

Rainbow green and yellow, too.

Rainbow orange,

Rainbow red,

Rainbow smiling overhead.

-Author Unknown

Colors of the Rainbow

http://peterandellen.com/lyrics/colors_rainbow.htm

This is a great song to use for colors or color word recognition. You could put the chorus in a pocketchart and point to it while singing the song. Then have cards with the colors and have students match the colors to the words.

My friend, Carol, also created a movement activity for the song which can be found at this link.

Rainbow Crepe Paper Rings

http://peterandellen.com/make-and-take.htm

Under the Rainbow

(tune: Up On the Housetop)

First comes the rain cloud passing by

Dropping raindrops in my eyes.

Then comes the sunshine up so high,

Now a rainbow in the sky.

Ho, ho, ho, who wouldn't go,

Under the rainbow, yes siree!

Under the rainbow with you and me.

-Author Unknown

Rainbow

(tune: If You're Happy and You Know It)

If you want to see a rainbow,

Check the sky.

Just as it is raining,

Look up high.

With the sun behind your back,

You'll see the colors stacked.

Oh, I love to see

A rainbow in the sky!

-Author Unknown

Rainbow Jello: Use clear cups or containers and layer different colors of Jello to produce the rainbow effect. This may take more than one day. Pour in the first color and let set well before adding the next color. (Make sure the Jello that you add isn't too hot so that it doesn't melt what's already there) Keep adding layers of Jello until you run out of colors or space!

Rainbow Nilla Wafers: I'm not sure if these are still around, but at one time, there was a Rainbow Nilla Wafer.

Rainbow Pudding: Use the same concept as the Jello above, but use either different colors of pudding or use vanilla and add food coloring.

Rainbow Cake: I haven't done this in YEARS, so I don't know that I'll remember exactly how to do it. (and I'm improvising the rainbow part) Bake a white sheet cake, use a wooden spoon handle and punch holes down into the top of the cake. Mix up different colors of Jello separately in bowls. Pour some of each color of the unjelled Jello into each hole. Frost the cake with vanilla frosting and add a rainbow to the top using sprinkles or whatever. Or write out the word "rainbow" or something using icing or cake decorations. Be creative! (and send pictures! ;) ) When you cut the cake, you'll have a rainbow cake inside and out! The kids will be so surprised and it really is good!