School Time: Rainbows Concluded

This past week we finished up our Rainbow unit. This is the unit I wanted to start right after St. Patrick's Day. That didn't happen because of the baby being in the hospital and then we concentrated on Resurrection Sunday. The girls have really been enjoying our Rainbow unit. And I have been amazed at all the foods I have been able to serve them focused on rainbows. Last week I shared about our Rainbow Muffin Tin and Rainbow Pancakes. Then for Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen we made Rainbow Fruit Pizza. This week we had:

Rainbow Spaghetti

(I found this on Pinterest. It was shared on Growing a Jeweled Rose)

Just cook your spaghetti, drain and rinse, and toss with some olive oil to prevent sticking. I completely missed that last step. Could be a reason why mine didn't turn out as nice as hers. Then separate into 6 bowls, put several drops of food coloring in each bowl, stir. Form rainbow. The one problem I noticed was by the time I had it all set up it had gotten cold. Oh, yeah, I added shredded mozzarella cheese for a cloud. The Texas toast is just because we wanted it.

Then I came up with this brilliant idea of making a Rainbow Salad. 

First I placed a bed of romaine lettuce leaves.

Then I made the rainbow:

Red grape tomato slices

Orange mini carrot slivers

Yellow raw corn off the cob

Green sliced avocado

Blue blueberries 

I couldn't think of anything for purple. Today my son suggested beets or pickled eggs.

And I used cauliflower for a cloud and ranch dressing for the other cloud.

Then I added a 1/4 of a bagel (I did a 1/4 so it would be an arc shape) 

and chicken to round out the meal.

And, yes, I even made myself a plate:

It was actually pretty well received. 

And then we made rainbow stew. No, this is not edible. I found this idea on about.com under Family Crafts.

Materials Needed:

• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 cup corn starch
• 4 cups water
• Food Coloring

Instructions:
Mix together all of the ingredients in a sauce pan. Stir constantly and heat until the mixture begins to thicken. Remove from heat and let cool.

(for anyone who was around for Wordless Wednesday you may remember the above picture.)

Divide the mixture into three bowls. Add a different color of food coloring to each bowl. Put approximately three tablespoon of each color into a zip-lock bag. Seal the bag and tape the top closed.

Knead the baggie to mix colors just enough to look like a rainbow. Lay bag down on a hard surface and gently press to flatten it. You can hang it in your window when finished. You can also just play with it and see wht happens to all of the colors!

One small note. If you want to have all the colors of the rainbow you need to put some of the red next to the blue or you only end up with 5 colors. 

Oh, my, I almost forgot to mention the other activity we did. We used food coloring to color ice cubes the three primary colors.

We then set the timer to see how solid they would be in one hour. Unfortunately, they were more solid than I expected after that short time. I was going to put toothpicks in them to help hold them for a later project, but after just one hour the top was completely solid. I could still stick my finger in if I pushed hard enough and the children could see it was still liquid inside, but it was too hard for a toothpick.

So, fast forward a couple of days...we decided to have fun mixing colors.

I put about 1/2 inch of hot tap water in the tub.

Then they chose two different color ice cubes to place in the water. First choice was blue and red.

Yes, blue and red makes purple. Of course, they already know that, but it was fun nonetheless.

We did this for each color combination. I just dumped the water and added fresh each time, along with rinsing the spoons.  I asked what color they wanted to make and which two colors we needed. 

And the baby sat by watching. 

I thought it would be cute for baby Harold to take a turn stirring.  What did he have the audacity to do??

He spit up in the water!!

The girls didn't like that very much. Of course, Hannah thought she would try to play with it. Fortunately we were done.

 And isn't it convenient, that the only time I got to take the girls to Story Time this year (because of the baby we haven't gone) they were playing with the colorful parachute.

We read some more great Rainbow books. I love the Rookie Read-About Science books. This one by Allan Fowler is a great introduction to rainbows.

It did a great job explaining how sunlight looks white and yet is made up of colors. And Tabitha is able to read them!

Then we read a fun picture book by Don Freeman (he is the author of Corduroy).

When a little boy sees a rainbow and tries to catch it, it suddenly isn't there. He then imagines a rainbow of his very own following him and playing with him. When the sun comes out his imaginary rainbow disappears as well, but he has a surprise at home. His very own real rainbow in his room. You have to read the book to find out how.

And we also reread Duckie's Rainbow by Frances Barry that I shared about last week.

While Tabitha, Amelia, Harold and I read the above books, Hannah sat on the floor "reading" 

and

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This Week We are Reading: Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car and 3 Go-Alongs

For the last two weeks we have read Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car by John Burningham. I needed to choose a book that is set in England so we could continue our journey around the world we started by following the baker in How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman.  Unfortunately this book is not in Volume 1 of Five in a Row, it is in Volume 2 and I don't have that manual. So we haven't really done much besides read the book and the go-alongs and talk a little about England. You would have thought I'd have more to discuss, seeing as my mom is from England, but I didn't. We did have our two muffin tins based on this book and Mr. Gumpy's Outing.

Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car Muffin Tin:

This muffin tin was a combo of the two books:

In Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car Mr Gumpy is going for a ride on a nice day when the children and the animals all want to come along. The weather turns rainy and they get stuck in the mud because no one wants to help push. It isn't until they are completely stuck that everyone gets out to help. We talked about the need to be willing to help and cooperate. We also talked about the fact that the steering wheel in Mr. Gumpy's car is on the right side of the car. I realized after I read Mr. Gumpy's Outing that Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car is actually a sequel, which explained why all the animals just piled in all at once without much of an explanation. In Mr. Gumpy's Outing

Mr. Gumpy is going out on his boat and the two children and each animal asks in its own way if it can come and Mr. Gumpy tells each of them yes, though each one is given a condition. As we all know it is important to be very careful while going on a boat ride so they don't tip over.  Of course, one thing led to another as the animals reacted to each other and they did tip over.

We read two other books these past two weeks.

In Duck in the Truck by Jez Alborough, Duck is driving down the road when he gets stuck in the muck. One by one a few friends come to help until they are able to budge that truck onto the road and it gets traction to go down the road. I love the rhyming words in this book, and we spend time finding them on each page. What I didn't like at the end of the book was that Duck went on down the road without a backward glance or a thanks and left his friends stuck in the muck. Which ended up being okay, because we were able to compare it to our next book:

In this story a more realistic duck is stuck in the muck by the marsh. He calls for help and on each page  different wildlife animals try to come to his aid. This is also a counting book. So first, two fish try to help, then three moose, and four crickets and so on. I love the descriptive words used in this story, and there is a little bit of rhyming too. Finally they all work together and get the duck out and he says, "thanks." Definitely liked this book better than the first duck in the mud book.

We still need to finish, but we are doing our find England on the map for our notebook page and matching some England landmarks to the names. As I said, nothing spectacular. 

One thing I did not plan on was their fascination with the muck and getting stuck in it. They were outside yesterday and when I looked out Tabitha was walking in the mud. I yelled at her (a bit ashamed I did) and made her come in. She was in one of her better dresses and sneakers. When she came in she said she was getting stuck in the muck. I just couldn't stay mad any longer.

And there is our muck:

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