Summer Learning: Rainbows Day 2

I was super excited to get started on day two's rainbow activities. It's activities like this that makes me have such a passion for early childhood education! This activity, however, took a little preparation in advance. What's on the agenda for today?

Rainbow Rice

Above are all the ingredients you'll need for this activity (this is a really simple "recipe" I found on the internet):

• six containers with lids
• wax paper
• paper towels
• food coloring
• rice
• rubbing alchohol
• six gallon size bags

To start off, I divided up how much rice I needed for each container. I found these containers at the dollar spot at Target (four for a dollar).

I poured the first container of rice into a gallon size bag.

I added about four or five drops of food coloring to the bag.  Then I added about half a teaspoon full of rubbing alcohol to the bag (this helps the color adhere to the rice a little easier). Then shake, turn, and knead the bag of rice to help the color evenly distribute.

Then I laid down some wax paper, and a paper towel on top of the wax paper.

Pour the dyed rice from the bag to the paper towel to let the rice dry. Make sure it's dried almost completely before enclosing it into the containers, otherwise the smell of the rubbing alcohol will knock you over - yuck!

Aren't they pretty?? I love looking at the finished product. So colorful!

I love these containers because I just put the lids on all of them and stacked them until I was ready to do the activity.

It's learning time!

Supplies:

• "Rr" circle page
• foam circles of rainbow colors

Today was focusing on the colors of the rainbow, the letter "Rr" and the shape of a circle. We started off with an "Rr" polka dot page. I had recently bought a big box of foam shapes. I pulled out a few circles, and we practiced saying the color of each circle, and then going over the shape and the letter.

When I first wrote this activity, I intended for us to glue the circles onto the "Rr". Instead, we just sort of used the "Rr" page as a learning mat and the circles as manipulatives. I like this much better. This leaves some room for reviewing and manipulating with the shapes. AB loved putting the circles onto the page.

We turned the paper over and practiced sorting the colors. Haha. Yeah, again with me forgetting I'm not working with a five year old. I would guide the sorting, but it was obviously a difficult concept. We did the best we could with it.

After about 10-15 minutes of this, it was time to move onto our sensory activity with the rainbow rice.

Supplies:

• containers of dyed rice
• big plastic bowl
• scoop
• old container or canister

I determined this would probably be best as an outside activity. So, I took a large bowl outside with a scoop, an old bread crumb container and the containers of dyed rice.

We worked on one color at a time. We dumped the first container of red into the bowl, and she spent a few minutes scooping the rice into the empty bread crumbs can. Sometimes she would alternate using the scoop and her hands. Hey, it's a sensory activity - do whatever floats your boat! We did this with each color and talked about what each color was.

Last time I mentioned that to AB every color was green. Well, I've noticed some progress...now everything is either green or purple. Haha. I guess it will take some time, but we'll get there. Oh, and I guess it's a good thing we made the rainbow rice an outdoor activity. We left evidence of the fun on the sidewalk.