Materials
Prism white paper hose, optional paper plates, one for every two children scissors colored sand: red, orange, yellow, blue, indigo, and violet white glue small paintbrushes rainbow-colored streamers, optional
Instructions
1. Take the children outside on a sunny day and hold up a prism so that it makes a rainbow on a sheet of paper. Encourage the children to examine the colors. Explain that the colors of a rainbow are always in the same order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The first letters of the colors make the name Roy G. Biv. See what happens if you block the sun. Point out that the colors are in the light. If you have access to a hose and can make a fine spray, you can create a rainbow the way that it happens in the sky.
2. Make rainbows to hang in the room. Cut out the flat circle centers of the paper plates. Cut each circle in half.
3. Draw arches on the half circles to create seven spaces in a rainbow shape.
4. Punch a hole at the top of the curve. Give one of the half circles to each child.
5. Pour a different color of sand onto separate paper plates.
6. Encourage the children to paint glue on the outside arch of the half circle. Then, ask the children to turn the plate over and press the glued space into red sand.
7. Encourage the children to paint the second arch with glue and press it into orange sand. Continue gluing and pressing into sand in this order: yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
8. Thread yarn through the hole and hang.
9. If desired, save the discarded outer rims and attach rainbow-colored streamers to them. Tie a long string to each one and let the children run around the playground while holding the string.
