Earlier this week I saw Hands On: As We Grow's awesome post about going on a Rainbow Toy Hunt and knew we had to do it because it was such a simple, but brilliant idea.
We saw Jamie's idea shared on several other sites and one of the commenters (Barbara) on Teach Preschool's Facebook page said they used to do a similar rainbow toy hunt, except that they put a different colored paper on each table in the preschool class.
What an awesome idea! I love all the inspiration that comes from other bloggers and teachers.
This is my tweaked version of the commenter's suggestion. We decided to make a simple color wheel in a large space on our dining room floor. The preschooler gathered the objects and then matched them with the appropriate paper taped to the floor. Meanwhile, the toddler followed him around and stole the objects off the color wheel and played with them.
Win-win, right? Both kids were engaged and I got to work on some social skills with the preschooler as we practiced telling his little sister not to ruin his color wheel creation (instead of grabbing objects from her hand and yelling at her). 🙂
The directions for making the color wheel are simple. Just use painters tape and adhere rainbow colored pieces of cardstock to the floor (or a large table... or a few small tables). Â
Then go hunting!
I had so much fun snapping pictures while the kids were looking for toys and playing with them too.
It is amazing how much more interesting old toys become when they are moved or put into a new context.
What did we learn?
During this activity we...
- talked about shapes and colors
- labeled the objects as we grabbed them and moved them around (the preschooler described the objects a bit and we talked about the colors and their names and the toddler just grabbed objects while I labeled them and talked about what they looked like)
- got our bodies moving a lot!
- sang our favorite Roy G Biv song and talked about rainbows
- practiced some sharing and conflict resolution skills (mentioned above)
Thanks Jamie for such an awesome idea!
Related Resources:Â
Here are some other wonderful rainbow themed projects we've done before that you might enjoy...
- Sweet Mini Marshmallow Rainbow
- Rainbow Marshmallow Painting
- Bumpy and Smooth Roy G Biv Rainbow
- Rainbow Pops
- Paper Plate Rainbow Shakers
I will be sharing another fun rainbow project over at Quirky Momma on Monday morning.
I am also a new kids craft contributor at Life... Your Way. Today I shared how we used rainbow potato printing to make a special gift for some friends. If you have a moment, hop on over and check out the post.
Have you gone on a color hunt with your kids?
What other sorts of rainbow activities do you like to do together? Make sure to share links in the comments so that I can pin them on pinterest!!!
Love this idea! My toddler and I had a great time doing this activity this morning!
I love how BIG this activity is. We did something similar but encountered a problem with size bc most of the items she found didn't quite fit right.
That is exactly the problem I thought we would have if we tried actually making a rainbow… unless I'd had gigantic paper, which I am out of!
I'll bet it was a great language activity where you got to talk a lot about size, so even though it didn't work the way you expected, your daughter probably still learned a lot!
Oh I love your version! So involved with it. Thanks!
Love this. I have seen lots of sorting activities but the large scale of this one makes it so much more fun! Can't wait to try it out 🙂
Thanks,
Becka
tinytoesbigbrains.com
Let me know how it goes!! Thanks for stopping by to check it out.
We've done something similar to this before, too. It was a huge hit. My son learned his colors because of it. I loved the extra learning opportunities you found with shapes and sharing. 🙂
Thanks Trisha!! 🙂