rainbow Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

Create a Graph with Rainbow Colors Printable and Activity

March 5, 2018 By Deirdre

I love to read my children a book before starting an activity. Since this activity has a rainbow theme, I would read a book like A Rainbow of My OwA Rainbow of My Own. Your children may already be familiar with it. I shared a roll and cover rainbow printable and a teaching numbers with rainbows printable last year when I first shared this book. You may have read it to them then.

Your children will dig through a bowl designed to look like it is filled with a cloud. They will have fun digging the buttons out of the cotton balls and placing them on the create a graph mat. Children will also have fun trying to find out how many buttons of each color they have in their bowl.

Create a Graph with Rainbow Colors

Getting Ready

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You will need to download with Creating a Graph with Rainbow Colors mat. It was designed to be printed out in color. Your children will need to clearly see the color words and the colored stripes on the graph.

If your children haven’t read the book A Rainbow of My Own. You will want to have a copy on hand to read to your children.

Other Supplies

Each of your children will need a bowl filled with cotton balls and a collection of buttons. We usedsalsa dip bowls. They looked like the pots you might find gold in at the end of the rainbow.

Create a Graph Activity

Your children will need to dig into their pot of gold bowls to pull out one button at a time. Then they will place the first button of each color across from the number one in their color column. They will move up to the next box in a color column when they pull a button of that color out of the cloud filled bowl.

Here are some more rainbow themed activities created by other members of the Virtual Book Club:

Learning Games for Kids- Jumping the Rainbow

March 5, 2015 By Deirdre

Learning games for kids that work on many skills are amazing. This Jumping the Rainbow game works in fine motor skills, estimating and problems solving. We played a similar game this summer at my house called Landing Spot On! Jumping the Rainbow involved trying to use a button to make a gold coin jump off a section of the rainbow and into a black bowl.

The challenge I gave my son was to try to get a gold coin into the bowl (pretend pot of gold) from somewhere on the rainbow. He could launch the coin with the button from any color of the rainbow and he could move the bowl up to the edge of the blue area of the rainbow. We happened to have bunch of pretend gold coins to send flying. ( I bought a bunch of them last summer. We use them a lot. Most recently we used them with number mats.)

After each coin launch, we talked about how close the coin had gotten to the bowl. We then talked about what changes would need to take place for the next launch to be successful.

Here are some variables we talked about for this game:

How much pressure should you to put on the coin with button?
Where to should you place the button on the coin when trying to launch it?
What color circle should the coin be placed in to launch it?
Where in a particular color should the coin be placed to launch it?
Wouldn’t it be easier to just move the bowl closer to the rainbow circles?
Where should you be sitting when you try to launch the coin?

Thinking through each of these questions helped to clarify just where the optimum launching spot was. It was such fun to break down the previous choices and build on the information we gained after each launch.

After playing Jumping the Rainbow, my son taught me some other learning games for kids that used the same game elements.

Other Learning Games for Kids

My son tried placing the rainbow game mat on the supports of a chair. The game board slipped forward. My son decided the rainbow game mat made a wonderful ramp. The black bowl could be placed on the floor beneath the ramp. The coins could be released from one of the color circles and sent slipping into the bowl. To get that to work you had to know how high up to place the coin and where to center the coin.
The second of the learning games for kids my son created involved setting the rainbow mat on a book on the supports of a chair.The coins were launched from one of the color circles with a button. The button flew from the color circle down into the bowl. This game was the most popular.

If you do try any of the learning games for kids above, please leave me a comment below telling me about it or share a picture of it on my Facebook page.

Crafts for Kids- Rainbow Collage of Colors

March 4, 2015 By Deirdre

We end up with a number of magazines. JDaniel gets two in the mail. I get two in the mail. We get some from my mother in law. Seeing that the magazine pile was getting a little bit tall I decided it was time to do a craft with them. ( We have done a number of crafts with recycled materials.) It would be fun I decided to search for rainbow colors in magazines and then gluing them in arcs of color. It would one of those crafts for kids that explores a number of skills and upcycle.

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I took out a5 Compartment Round Plastic Serving Tray. I didn’t have a tray that held all the colors of the rainbow. We decided we would search the magazines for just the first five colors of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green and blue). When we found a swatch of one those colors in a picture that was big enough to cut out, we did just.

We found that the magazines that featured recipe and food tended big pictures that contained the colors we were looking for. JDaniel’s kids magazines tended to have much smaller pictures. Thank goodness we had mine magazines to look through.

Hint: If you don’t have time for your children to cut out the color squares from magazines, you could do it in advance. You could also ask friends or family members to search their magazines and send you the pictures. They may like to help with crafts for kids.

The pictures were cut into small square like shapes. We both tried to cut nice squares with straight edges, but all the edges didn’t end up straight.

When we thought we had enough of each color, we were ready to start the rainbow collage. The square like sections of each color were glued on the a crayon draw rainbow that displayed the five colors we had searched for.

We found it easier to glue all the squares of one color down at one time and then move on to another color. You could glue them down any way your like. You may find that your children each approach gluing the colors down differently.

When all the arcs are covered with color squares from magazines, we were done. You may decide to add white construction paper cumulus cloud to either end of the rainbow. A pot of gold could be added too.

Here are some other St. Patrick’s Day activities for kids:

{Printable} Roll and Color St. Patrick’s Day Pages

Creating a Snack with Leprechaun Magic Dust

Creating a Rainbow Place Mat

Here are some other crafts for kids that have a St. Patrick’s Day theme:

Simple Sticker Rainbow

Five Little Hand Print Shamrocks Song and Craft

If you do try any of the above activities or holiday crafts for kids, please leave me a comment below telling me about it or share a picture of it on my Facebook page

St Pattys Day Rainbow Folder Game

February 26, 2015 By Deirdre

When I taught second grade, my students always wrote stories about a leprechaun crossing a rainbow from Ireland right to the playground outside our classroom window on St Pattys Day. I even wrote a version of this story starter for my son. This rainbow crossing file folder game reminds me of those stories. Our little leprechauns (children) can cross the rainbow on gold coins that a leprechaun has left behind on his journey to his pot of gold.

We had to answer review questions about the concepts my son was studying at school to move forward one coin. (We missed almost a whole week to cold and ice. We needed to get our brains back to thinking about school work.)

Since there were just the two of us playing, we decided to cross from one color to the next as we move forward. If it had a whole group of children, we would have stayed on the same color all the way up the rainbow.

With most games if you miss a question you lose your turn and have to wait until the other person has had a turn. We played that if a person missed a question the other person had a chance to answer it and move forward one gold coin. My son loves the idea of stealing or getting an extra turn.

The point of the game was to review the concepts he needs to know. I guess we could have just placed the missed question at the bottom of the stack of questions and waited for it to come up again. It might be a good way to see if one of us remembered the answer that had been talked about the last time the question reached the top of the stack.

There really isn’t a right or wrong way to climb across the rainbow to the pot of gold. It is important that you go over the direction or agree to the directions before you start the game.

Supplies for Putting This St Pattys Day Game Together:

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Dot Stickers, Metallic Gold
Construction Paper in the Colors of the Rainbow (Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple)
Black Construction Paper
Glue Stick
Scissors
File Folder
Magic Markers

Tips for Putting This File Folder Game Together:

The construction paper used to create the rainbow were stacked and then cut into arcs so, they would fit together easily.
The rainbow’s arc and the pot for the gold were highlighted on their edges to give them a pop.
Gold labels were used instead of cutting out yellow or gold paper add a contrast to the rainbow. Plus they look fun!
A ruler was used when sticking the gold labels down in columns. It was placed vertically on the rainbow and the stickers were placed beside the ruler in each color band.

Here are some other St. Pattys Day activities for kids:

{Printable} Roll and Color St. Patrick’s Day Pages

Creating a Snack with Leprechaun Magic Dust

Creating a Rainbow Place Mat

If you do try any of the above holiday crafts, please leave me a comment below telling me about it or share a picture of it on my Facebook page

Want more fun rainbow activities? Follow the links:

Classic Cereal Rainbow Craft / Frogs Snails & Puppy Dog Tails

Sparkly Rainbow Slime / Craftulate

Rainbow Candy Smash Cookies / Rainy Day Mum

Rainbow Stacking Cups / SugarAunts

Sticky Rainbow Collage/ Inspired by Family Magazine

Holiday Crafts for Kids- Rainbow Place Mat

February 23, 2015 By Deirdre

I remember weaving place mats as being one of those holiday crafts for kids that I did often when I was little. In preschool and early elementary school I must have made one for every major holiday. My teachers must have known it was a great fine motor activity! Maybe they just like to have us weave mats!

A rainbow woven place mat seemed like the perfect craft for St. Patrick’s Day! After all leprechauns are said to have hidden their gold at the end of rainbows.

This woven rainbow mat displays the colors of the rainbow in order. I think that that makes this craft one that could be done as part of a weather or spring unit too. Just laminate the place mat or cover it with contact paper and it would be a great at any holiday feast.

We started by following a piece of white construction paper in half. Then slats were cut up from the fold to about about an inch and half away from the top of the paper. If you are worried about cutting to close too the top you can fold the top section down about an inch half. Then you can cut up to the folded down area. (You can see the folds in our holiday crafts for kids mat at the top and the bottom.) This will be the warp of the weaving.

A stack of the construction paper arranged in the colors of the rainbow was cut into one inch strips. It was important to try to keep all the strips the same width. If that isn’t important to you, you can just have your children cut out long strips out the colors of construction paper found in a rainbow. You could have one or two children be in charge of each color! You could pre-cut all the strips using a paper cutter, if you don’t have time to have your children cut them out. ( That would insure that you have nice straight strips of paper.)

With the strips and place mat paper cut out, it then time to weave. The colored strips will be the weft of weaving. (I think children love to learn new words. I thought warp and weft would be fun for them to know.) The children will alternate weaving the strips over and under that slats cut in the white construction paper. Little daps of glue or swipes of a glue stick are placed on the ends of each of the strips to hold them in place.

This rainbow mat would be a great center activity or maybe it would be one of those holiday crafts for kids that would be done as whole group.

Here are some other holiday crafts for kids that have a St. Patrick’s Day theme:

Simple Sticker Rainbow

Five Little Hand Print Shamrocks Song and Craft

If you do try any of the above holiday crafts, please leave me a comment below telling me about it or share a picture of it on my Facebook page

Family Fun- Over the Veggie Rainbow

February 18, 2013 By Deirdre

If you happen to look through the March issue of Family Fun magazine, you will see that their Treat of the Month looks a lot like this snack that I created for a guest post on the Kid’s Activities Blog. It doesn’t look just like this snack. The food stylist made a few changes to it, but it is really based on mine. The addition of carrot coins was genius. I really like that idea. They went with guacamole rather than spinach hummus. Their snack has beautifully arrange peppers that are uniform in height too.

How do I know? Well, they contacted me and asked it they could use my idea. I was over the rainbow or maybe over the moon. If you look very carefully along the inside edge of the page, you will see my name and the name of this blog. You might need a magnifying glass, but it is there. My husband said it was very had to see. To me it looks small, but very clear. Maybe that is because it is my name that I am reading.

I have never had my name in a magazine before and I am just a little thrilled. (Can you tell?) Even JDaniel got excited about it. He helped make the hummus in the original snack so, I think he feels like he had a big part in its success. I loving cooking and baking with him. It is wonderful that the snack they like best was one that he worked on too.

I receive my copies of the Family Fun magazine via Federal Express on Valentine’s Day. It was so cool. I am not sure when the issue will get to your mailbox if you get this wonderful magazine. When it does, I hope you will turn to page 26 of your Family Fun magazine and check out the Over the Veggie Rainbow.