Rainbow Fun, St. Patrick's Day Countdown

We started our lucky 7 St. Patrick's Day countdown today with some rainbow fun.  It was a perfect day for this theme as we had plenty of rain.  Unfortunately, we never spotted a rainbow, but made plenty of our own fun!

We started our morning off by reading the story of Noah.  I read from the Children's Bible for Juiciness and Sassyfras since it is very short.  For Little J, we read from a book called 5 Minute Bible Stories and it goes into more detail with the story of Noah. 

Rainsticks

 After reading The Rain Came Down, by David Shannon, we made rainsticks using clear containers, colored pom poms, and rice. 

Start by placing pom poms in rainbow order.  They should fit loosely in the container to allow the rice to move easily.  The pom poms slow the rice down and when the container is rotated, it makes a gentle sound like a gently falling rain.

Colored rice would be cute with this project.  I just didn't take the time to make some.  However, I told them that it represented white light that helps make a rainbow.

Rainbow Fruit Pizza

This fruit pizza was the hit of the day.  The kids (and my husband) devoured it for dessert.  The crust is made from sugar cookie dough sprinkled with rainbow sugar sprinkles. 

Crust

Press sugar cookie dough into a pan, I used a tart pan, and bake according to cookie recipe.  Allow to cool completely. 

Filling

80z softened cream cheese

2 tablespoons powdered sugar

4-6oz Cool Whip

Put all ingredients into a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy.  Spread over center of sugar cookie crust.  Cover and refrigerate until ready to top and serve.

Topping

Sliced fruit of your choice.  I used strawberries, mandarin oranges, sliced bananas tossed with a little lemon juice, kiwi, blueberries, and sliced grapes.  Make sure all fruit is patted dry to keep the juices from making the crust soggy.  I drizzled a little melted chocolate over the top when we were ready to eat.

Fingerpaint

We played with some homemade fingerpaint.  We haven't done much finger painting, so this was more of a fun sensory experience than an art project for Sassyfras and Juiciness.

Recipe

1 cup corn starch

2 cups water (more if needed)

3 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon of salt

Place all ingredients in a pot over low-medium heat.  cook, stirring regularly, for about 15 minutes until smooth and thick.  Divide into containers and add food coloring. 

I made this the day before and it had thickened quite a bit. I mixed in a little water and it was fine.

Graphing

One of Little J's activities was to graph the contents of a pack of Skittles.  He LOVED doing this, of course he knew they were his to keep!  I included a column for blue skittles (there are no blue skittles) which he picked up on right away.  I also gave him a few questions to answer based on the graph.  You can download the graph below.

Skittles Graph

We also did a little Internet search and I've listed below our favorite sites.  Once we had some facts about rainbows, we went outside to look for a rainbow.  I asked him where we should look based on our information and he knew to stand with the sun to his back.  Unfortunately, no luck.

Make a Rainbow

Then we tried to place a small mirror in a bowl of water and shine light into it until we created a rainbow on the ceiling.  It wasn't spectacular, but it did make a rainbow and we were able to discuss why this was happening.
http://www.catalogs.com/info/earth-science/what-makes-a-rainbow.html
http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/sci/A0857451.html
http://www.teach-nology.com/themes/science/light/

We finished the day by playing Candyland.  Juiciness and Sassyfras are so funny with this game.  They don't understand how to play no matter how much we tell them or show them.  Instead they match the cards to the blocks on the board or make matches amongst the cards.  So cute.

Linking to: Fun for Kids Friday, The Play Academy, Fireflies and Jellybeans, Read Explore Learn, Hodge Podge Friday, Fingerprints on the Fridge, Fun for the Kids Friday, Tatertots and Jello, Not Baaad Sundays, Be Different Act Normal, While He Was Napping, Made by You Monday, Made by Little Hands Monday, Made it on Monday, Sweet Treat Thursday, Kitchen Fun with My Three Sons