Why are there so many songs about rainbows?

'Tis the month of March and with the month of March comes talks of rainbows. Last week, my class wrote a poem using the colors of the rainbow, that was fun. But, that's nothing compared to the fun we had today. First, rookie moment, I didn't have my kids put on smocks when they did their water colors. It's washable and thankfully the one child who got paint on her shirt has an awesome mom who understands. Anyway, my 2 cohorts had their kids paint rainbows earlier this week, so I decided to follow suit.

Yesterday I planned to have my kids paint today, I set aside an hour for the activity and got everything I needed ready. I got home and got on my computer to do some blog stalking when I went to the Cosmo Cricket blog. Julie (and her crew) always have such great ideas and yesterday was no difference. She wrote about using salt on water color paintings to make a certain effect. I saw it and thought, "perfect, it looks like rain."

So, this morning I stopped by the store on my way to work to pick up some salt shakers and got ready to show my kids the magic powers of salt. I gave them the directions just like Julie did, "wetter is better" and told them to go at it. When they were done, they brought their painting to me and I showered their paintings with salt. They were so excited to see what would happen next...and were amazed I knew a magic trick.


Here are my student's masterpieces. (Notice the one original vertical page - love the creativity).

You can't really see the effect from far away, so I've also included a close up of one. Rainbows truly are more magical when you add a little rain to them.











Thanks Julie and Cosmo Cricket for letting me stalk you.

I also have discovered my talent for making up and telling stories to my class - today it was the story of Roy G Biv and his gift from the rainbow. Hopefully that'll be on here soon.

Michelle