Most preschoolers love rainbows. Rainbows are bright and cheerful reminders that even the dreariest days can have beautiful moments. However, it’s hard to get a rainbow to happen “on demand.” Unless, of course, there’s a light table activity with rainbows to play with! This Rainbow Light Table Activity is perfect for brightening the smiles of students and teachers alike!
This easy Rainbow Light Table Activity is perfect for practicing colors, finessing fine motor skills, and strengthening sorting skills.
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Rainbow Preschool Unit
$5.50Find your good fortune with this Rainbow Circle Time mini-unit for preschoolers. Each day includes fun songs and activities to help you teach your preschool and Pre-K students about rainbows.
Materials Needed for the Rainbow Light Table Activity
Only a few simple pieces are needed to set up this activity.
- A light table
- Rainbow outlines
- Translucent pegs, pompoms, or glass “rocks” in the six rainbow colors
- Snack trays to contain the pegs
The rainbow outlines pictured are from the Rainbows Mini Unit and are printed on transparency sheets. Thin copy paper works nearly as well, or even drawing on a page protector with a black permanent marker would work. And, of course, while the pegs are beautiful, pompoms or colored glass vase filler rocks could work just as well.
The Purple Problem
Anyone familiar with middle school science knows rainbows have seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. However, good old ROY G. BIV isn’t practical for young learners. It can often be challenging to distinguish between indigo and violet, so many educators of young children combine the two into “purple.” And, since the colors orange and indigo were only added because Sir Isaac Newton thought there should be seven colors to reflect the harmony of the seven notes on the musical scale, it is perfectly acceptable to lump in indigo and violet as one hue – purple.
On top of that, this set of pegs came in six colors – red, orange, yellow, green, blue…and clear. Since that certainly wouldn’t do the trick, a purple permanent marker came to the rescue. Coloring the clear pegs purple worked just fine to create beautiful translucent purple pegs to complete the rainbow!
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Other Rainbow ideas
Are you looking for some more colorful ideas for the preschool classroom? Try some of these!
- Color Sorting Sensory Play
- Rainbow Activities blog
- Colors Unit
- Rainbow stacking blocks
- Rainbow Discovery Bottles
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