We love the song Roy G Biv by They Might be Giants and were watching the video of it this afternoon when my son decided that we needed to do a rainbow project. We had been talking about St. Patrick's Day and rainbows and pots of gold... which led to the Roy G Biv watching (so great- see below)
Anyways, we collected our materials and started creating a rainbow together!
Materials Needed: colorful pom poms, ROYGBIV colored markers, scissors, ROYGBIV colored scrap paper or construction paper you can cut up, large drawing paper (or you can make a smaller version), and Elmers glue
Directions:
1. Cut up your paper into small pieces.
2. Draw an outline of a rainbow. I used the colors in the order that we were going to be making our rainbow (ROYGBIV) as a cue for my son while we were creating. You could also just use a black marker and have your child design his/her own rainbow without the cues.
3. Put out a container of pom poms and a container of colored paper scraps.
4. Add some glue to the rainbow and start sorting the colors and sticking the bumpy and smooth items onto the rainbow! We worked on one section at a time, but you don't have to. First we talked about red, found all the red pom poms and red pieces of paper, and then we stuck all the red ones on...
The main reason we went from the top down was so that my son didn't wind up with glue all over his forearms and elbows... and because we wanted to go in ROYGBIV order! We talked about each alphabet letter related to colors of the rainbow and the color each letter stood for while we glued.
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Once we were done with our evening project (sorry for all the dark pictures, it was rainy outside and it was the evening when we were doing this)... we sang a few rainbow songs.
This was our favorite one...
This was such a great activity that we enjoyed doing together at a slow pace. My daughter (who is 3 months old) also loved sitting on my lap while we worked. She liked seeing the vibrant colors and touching the different textures. While my son glued objects onto the rainbow, I would stick her hand in the different bowls and she would grab the objects and I just talked with her about what she was seeing and feeling. I don't think it is ever too early to start introducing new words to babies!
Words we discussed (or reviewed in the case of my son): soft, squishy, smooth, bumpy, color words (ROYGBIV), sticky (glue), colorful, and rainbow... and probably other words I can't remember right now!
Great project!!!
Great project! We love rainbows and made a similar ( but more complicated for older kids) project today and will be posting it tomorrow.
Thanks for linking, I love your blog!
Another great project! Kerri
We love They Might Be Giants' Roy G Biv!!! Great project, too, we'll have to do this. My daugther will have to wear her rainbow shirt, of course. She's two and has known for a long time that V is for Violet, and that Violet is essentially purple. So I can attest to that rocking song's educational value!
Cheryl- I thought the same thing, but both are fun songs and my son didn't seem confused. I just told him that violet was a type of purple… and he's not ready for indigo yet, pink is easier. We actually skipped pink in our rainbow project though… ran out of room.
With older kids I would probably take time to explain it a bit… but with a 3 yr old it isn't too big of a deal (in my opinion). 🙂 The first song is definitely for older kids, but has such a fun beat that we love listening to it.
I love the second song…. got a question though, isn't it confusing that the colors used are different? Purple-pink instead of indigo and violet?
Caz- i did it twice 🙂 first one was totally crooked.
Your rainbow looks so perfect, when I draw them they end up all wonky! Love the idea of adding textures, the end result looks great.