Rainbow Week: EVERYTHING You Need to Plan for a Colorful Week in Preschool
Are your preschoolers obsessed with all-things rainbows?! Play into this fanatic love and plan an entire week of rainbow-themed activities and call it “Rainbow Week”. Your preschoolers will LOVE it!
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9 Favorite Activities for Rainbow Week
Sorting Activity
Start your Rainbow Week off by reading How the Crayons Saved the Rainbow by Monica Sweeny. In this precious book, students learn about teamwork and perseverance as the different colored crayons learn to use their unique strengths to make the world a better place together.
After reading, use this rainbow sorting craft to let little minds identify and sort the colors of the rainbow.
They will also work on fine motor skills while coloring, cutting, and gluing as they work independently.
Dot Painting
Next up is rainbow dot painting!
Grab some butcher paper, draw a rainbow, and let your kids dot paint with Do.A.Dot Art Markers. (These markers have true rockstar status for preschoolers; the kids go WILD when seeing them come out!)
This is a great activity to practice color matching, hand-eye coordination and strengthening, and teamwork.
Watch this fun activity in action!
Other options:
- Use scrap paper and glue for tear art
- Use dice to roll colors or numbers (assign a number to a color and when that number gets rolled, dot that color)
- Use colored dot stickers
Ten-Frame Puzzles FREEBIE
Practice early math skills with this Rainbow Ten-Frame Puzzle FREEBIE.
Little ones work on counting, 1:1 correspondence, ten-frame matching, and building for numbers 1-10.
Play in a small group or whole group, throw in a sensory bin, or set out at home for extra practice.
Pro Tip: A quick run through the laminator helps keep this activity reusable for many Rainbow Weeks in the future!
Letters and Numbers Puzzles
This activity is the expanded version of the FREEBIE above. In this resource, you’ll find letters, beginning sounds, and numbers 1-20.
Little learners practice early literacy skills by matching capital to lowercase letters and letters to beginning sounds with the provided clouds and rainbows.
Practice early math skills by building ten-frames with the included rainbow counters or other manipulatives like mini-rainbow erasers or tasty snacks.
Letter Building
Invite students to learn through play as they build rainbow letters.
What you need:
- Butcher paper (something about this large size makes work seem sooo special for littles!)
- Markers
- Froot Loops
How to:
- Tear off a large piece of butcher paper
- Draw clouds and letters all over the page
- Model the fine motor action of placing cereal onto the letters
- Let kids have fun!
Tailor this activity to whatever you’re working on— specific letters, numbers, sight words, names, shapes, etc. It’s perfect for littles of all ages from daycare through kindergarten.
See a step-by-step video tutorial here.
Rainbow Rice
Your preschool class will LOVE this rainbow rice sensory activity! Bonus for you, I’ve found the EASIEST way to dye rice that dries quickly AND doesn’t smell like vinegar– everyone wins!
What you need:
- Uncooked rice*
- Washable paint (my favorite is Crayola tempera paint)
- Hand sanitizer
- Plastic bins
- Zippered bags
How to:
- Place rice in a ziplock bag
- Squirt in about 5 pumps of hand sanitizer (the binding agent)
- Squirt in some paint (you can add more later if needed)
- Close the bag and shake until thoroughly coated. If the paint isn’t moving around enough, add more sanitizer. If the paint isn’t bright/saturated enough, add more paint.
- Lay out on a tray to dry. It dries quickly, but I always leave it for a couple of hours to be sure.
- Repeat with as many colors as you want.
- Place it in a bin and have fun!
The colors made fade slightly over time, but there’s NO MESS and NO STAINING of hands during play!
*This method works perfectly with uncooked pasta too.
Read this post for ideas about what do to next with your rainbow rice.
Rainbow Colors Reader FREEBIE
Grab this free reader about rainbow colors and let your emerging readers dive right in!
Little ones read the rainbow sentences and trace the color words on each page. They can color the pictures too for more fine motor practice and color matching.
This reader is perfect for centers, small groups, homework, intervention, whole group, and more.
Busy Bags
Make rainbow busy bags for your favorite little ones to take home.
This low-prep activity is perfect for calm-down centers, fine motor practice, color matching, and sensory fun!
What you need:
- Zippered bags
- Clear gel (this hair gel works great!)
- Pom-poms
- Permanent markers
How to:
- Draw a rainbow on the bag
- Squirt in gel
- Put in pom-poms
It’s really as simple as that!
Writing Craft
This Rainbow Kids Writing Craft is a great way to round out your fun week!
Little ones create themselves and write about colors. Each line in the rainbow has a writing sentence starter “Red is for…” so students can fill in the rest of the sentence.
Faces are blank, so students can draw or use paper/stickers to design their faces or use the eyes and mouths included. Provide different colored construction paper for skin colors to represent diversity in your classroom and for students to design their kid craft as a true representation of themselves.
Take it an Extra Step
These 9 activities are plenty to keep your littles amused while learning during Rainbow Week, but why not take it a step further and infuse rainbows in even more ways?! I’m all for the fun and memories!
Dress Up
Encourage students to dress in rainbow colors all week– and make sure you do too!
There’s something so special about little ones seeing their teacher dress festively.
Fun Snacks
Have a rainbow-themed snack each day. If your school allows, ask different parents to help send these items in so it doesn’t all fall on you.
Some favorite tasty ideas:
- Variety of fresh fruit
- Lucky Charms or Froot Loops cereals
- M&M’s or Skittles
- Colored Goldfish
- Popsicles
Build Rainbows
Encourage your preschoolers to be creative and make their own rainbows using classroom materials.
Provide manipulatives like:
Rainbow Week is one of my preschoolers’ favorite weeks of the school year, and honestly, it’s one of mine too! Stop and soak in your little ones’ excited faces as you have a week full of rainbow fun together.
You might also be interested in:
Sort and Count the Rainbow Activity
Very Hungry Caterpillar Activities
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