Rainbow Books

Who doesn't get super excited when they see a rainbow? Kids jump out of their seat, and everyone just takes a minute to admire this art in the sky.  Why not turn your living room, or classroom into a rainbow for an afternoon?  These books, crafts, songs, and activities can help you and your early learners discover all about the colors of the rainbow, plus how to spot one, and enjoy a couple fictional stories that include rainbows.

I'm going to start with what's probably my favorite (so far) non fiction book that has a rainbow in it:

A Rainbow of My Own by Don Freeman

Copyright 1966

This book is from 1966 but it's timeless.  I think every child can relate to the main character. The boy runs outside to try to capture the rainbow just to find it was gone, then as he's wishing for one of his very own, what should come up behind him but a rainbow ready to play! Then when it's time the rainbow leaves and he goes home to find in his room a rainbow on his wall!

This book keeps the sentences simple so it's great for reading to a group, to small children and on their own for independent reading.  The illustrations are fun, colorful, and entertaining. The yellow rain boot, hat and raincoat are classic.

Don Freeman was a creative mind and opens a doorway between reality to imagination back to reality seamlessly.  This doorway in the book, we can pull from it so many opportunities with our own children:

Where and When do you find a rainbow?

If you had a rainbow for your own what would you do together? (This can be used for all ages: Draw a picture. Tell a story. Write a paragraph of what you'd do together.)

Where would a rainbow hide?

How can you make a rainbow of your own?

These are all questions for fiction and non-fiction learning!  I love this book.  This one book out of all you can do a whole rainbow lesson on.  So if you had to pick only one A Rainbow of My Own would be the one, but to enhance your story-time, or lesson add a couple of the other books I have listed here.

Elmer and the Rainbow by David McKee

Elmer has many books (Elmer 12 Book Set Here ) and if your child already knows this patchwork elephant than this is a book to add to your rainbow lesson.  It is another fiction book.

In this adventure Elmer and his friends notice an odd thing in the sky, a colorless rainbow, so Elmer goes off to find the end of the rainbow.  Along the way he asks his jungle friends to help him in his search.  Once the rainbow end is found Elmer goes and gives the rainbow his own colors.

What I love more than anything in this book is this quote:

"Some things you can give and give and not lose any.  Things like happiness or love...."

Brilliant quote about how kindness is free.  Be Kind! 

We all know that there isn't a patchwork elephant, and that's not how rainbows get their colors, but it is a fun imaginative story that can lead to the question of "Well how do rainbows get their color?" (So glad you asked because I have a book to share with you about just that!!)

Elmer has colors on him that aren't in the rainbow.  Point that out!  What colors are on Elmer that aren't in the rainbow?  What colors are in the rainbow?  This would be a great time to share the song In The Rainbow by Pamela Piersyn.  I love this catchy song that isn't annoying, and is educational!  Good bye ROY-G-BIV. Hello "In the Rainbow" Promise you if you play this song the kids will know all 7 colors of the rainbow!  While I sang and listen to this song with the children I assembled a felt board rainbow.  If you want the children to have a fun rainbow toy so they can use all sight, touch, along with hearing check out this stack-able rainbow toy!  It has all 7 colors so they can build their rainbow with the song as well!!



 Two other books that I used for my All the Colors of the Rainbow lesson were Penguins Love Colors by Sarah Aspinall and Bear Sees Colors by Karma Wilson

Both of these books are great for helping children learn their colors.  Penguins Love Colors has rainbows throughout the book and each little penguin has their own color, but the downside to this is that there are only 6 penguins instead of 7.  This is quite common in many early learner rainbow books, they don't mention indigo so when the children are older and they are thrown for a surprise that there are really 7 colors.  Don't let this keep your from using this great story because you can ask them what color is missing?

Bear Loves Colors does not have a rainbow anywhere in the whole book!  So why did I put it in my story time?  Simple, it's a FUN book to read aloud with the children.  The rhymes allows you to let the kids yell out what color Bear is going to see next.  It's reinforcing their colors, and allows them to search each page for things of that color.  Bear sees Blue!  Blue berries...and then you can ask "What do you see that's blue?  You can make a scavenger hunt game out of the book for kids to do next time they are outside to see if they can find each thing bear sees, or something in nature of each color.

In my story times after reading these books that reinforce the color names I did a simple song again using all the colors of the rainbow.  I made little finger puppets for each color out of felt and sang:
"Red color. Red Color, Where are you?" and hold up the red puppet "Here I am. Here I am."  I'll admit it came from this video that my daughter watches.
And after you've gone through all seven colors do "rainbow" or "all the colors" for the last verse.


Now that the children know the colors in the rainbow let's go back and answer that question of "how do rainbows get their color?"  The one non fiction book I used was The Rainbow and You by E.C. Krupp

The Rainbow and You is written for an older audience Amazon suggest 6-12 year old. When I used it I had mostly 5-7 age range in my group and so I didn't read it cover to cover but marked a couple pages and read only a few passages to the group.  I love that E.C. Krupp teaches children how to find a rainbow.  He also shares different legends of Rainbows from Native Americans to Greek Gods.  There's also the science and discovery of rainbows in the book.  It's packed full of information.
Robin Rector Krupp illustrated the book and I love how she portrayed Roy. G. Biv as a person! That image will stay will me now every time I think of ROYGBIV.

Since doing my story time I have found other non fiction books about the rainbow that I need to check out and see if any of those will be better suited for the younger children I typically read to. (I've shared them below)  If you are interested or have read these title please let me know what you thought of them in the comments.



 Craft time!  There are countless rainbow crafts out there!  These are the crafts I've done with my kids both very similar :

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1. Construction Paper assemble a rainbow from cloud to pot if you want to do this for St.Patty's day cut out some gold chips to add to it.

2. We did this one at my daughter's preschool:
*cut a paper plate in half***to  implement the reduce and reuse from environment mindfulness post instead of wasting paper plates reuse some old cereal boxes and cut out a cloud shape
* Tissue Paper Streamer
*cotton balls to make the cloud puffy (or puffy paint)
Assemble the rainbow with the materials

3. For older children you can do some painted rocks:
* smooth rocks, paint, paint markers, and seal.  You can use rocks from your garden, or the dollar store as well as the ones I've shared here.  Before you use the rocks wash and let them dry.  If you use dollar store rocks boil them to remove the wax on them.  The paint and paint pens that I've shared below are amazing! But feel free to experiment and find what works best for you.

I hope you have a wonderful colorful day today and maybe you will even find a rainbow of your own!