We decided to honor St. Patrick’s day with a rainbow theme this year. Who doesn’t love rainbows?
(Since we have only preschoolers in the class this year, we won’t be going into the science of rainbows.)
The Colors of the Rainbow
The children can use these Montessori Color Tablets to sequence the colors of the rainbow. We found this lovely, vibrant picture on google images. (Wooden tray is from the craft store, but a similar one is available on Amazon.)
Color Mixing
We’ve been exploring color-mixing in our class for a few months. This little extension gives them an introduction to placing the colors in a color wheel. I like using colored water in glass dropper bottles for this because it allows the children to hold up the bottles next to each other and look through to see if it makes the secondary color they want, like this…! The little cups are glass tea light holders from Ikea but similar ones are available on Amazon.
Indigo and Violet
I’m excited about this new color mixing work. We talked about the colors “indigo” and “violet” and learned how to make them using diluted blue and red paint. Putting equal amounts of red and blue in both jars makes a nice purple color. Now look what happens when we add extra blue to one jar, and extra red to the other jar…
Paint works much better than colored water for this activity. The tray is from Montessori Services.
Painting a Rainbow
We’ve also been working on brush strokes for the past few months, and we finally have the full water color set out! It’s perfect for painting rainbows. This rainbow activity provides a great control of error for the skill of washing the brush each time they change colors – if they forget this step, their finished rainbow will be quite brown!
I love how earnestly the little ones watch the older students in the class.
Rainbow Pre-Sewing Activities
Whoever on the interwebs came up with the idea of using an organizer shelf for weaving, I salute you. This is such a genius idea, and much better than paper as an introduction to weaving and to the up-down motion for sewing.
Our necklace work is an even bigger hit than usual these days. The children have been trying to sequence the cereal into a rainbow pattern. The children call this the eat-a-rainbow necklace (but they have strict instructions that it can only be eaten at home with their parents’ permission! We don’t serve artificially colored food at school for snack)
Here’s a simple lacing activity. The children can decorate the lacing plate by gluing crumpled tissue in a rainbow pattern.
Rainbow Counting
I have to confess, I am in love with this work. I don’t remember putting together another activity as gorgeous as this in all my years in the classroom. Wish my camera did justice to these glowing, vibrant colors. I used plain spice jars from Ikea. I just filled them with water and added a drop of food coloring. The numbers were printed on transparent mailing labels on my laser printer. You could just as easily write them on with a sharpie.
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Seemi holds a Master's degree in education, and an AMS Early Childhood credential. She has twenty years of experience in Montessori as a teacher, school administrator, and school owner. Seemi is the founder of TrilliumMontessori.org.