A Rainbow in a Jar

This morning, we saw a Sid the Science Kid episode on PBS about rainbows.  Later that morning, I got it in my head to do something with the rainbow theme.  Some moms have it in them to choose themes and do all sorts of craft projects with their kiddos. Boy do I admire those women!!  I’m too chicken to get art supplies out, so I tend to let it slide by the wayside or do easy paper-only crafts.

I looked in my paper drawer and found (basically) all the colors of the rainbow.  I then got a cheap food storage container out to collect small bits of paper.

 

 

 

 

Jack and I sat on the floor and ripped paper for what seemed like hours.  Really, it was probably more like 10 minutes.  Jack can’t rip paper yet unless it’s already started, so I had to put a small rip in the paper, then hold on while he ripped off a small-ish piece of paper. 

He loved putting the pieces of paper into the container.  When I would close it to shake down the paper, he would say “MORES!” (he’s the most articulate 23 month old I know, but he can’t say more correctly – go figure)  We named each color as we were ripping the paper.  I even used indigo and violet instead of blue and purple.  He’s very good at his colors already, so I hope I didn’t just ruin him!

After we had all the paper in the container, I showed him how he had a rainbow in a jar and that he could shake it up and look at all the colors.  HA!  That lasted all of –3 seconds (he interrupted me while I was explaining my brilliant idea) before he said “play crane!!” He wanted to pick up the pieces of paper with his ‘crane hand’ and dump them on the floor. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So that’s what we did!  I got out two big bowls for him to scoop, dig, and transfer the paper pieces.  He played for quite a while with this.

So there ya go.  Something arts-n-craftsy (with no mess!) from my home to yours.