Flannel Friday: Magical Rainbow Stew

Rainbows are MAGICAL ~ in and of themselves ~ but this activity will have your storytime friends asking, "How did you do that? Is it magic?"

This week's Flannel Friday is my version of:

 Rainbow Stew

Items needed:

Flannel or Magnetic board

Cauldron or "pot" of some sort

Spoon 

(for stirring)

Colorful fruits 

(made from felt, fun foam or a set of artificial fruit)

Rainbow pieces

(made from felt or fun foam)

We will get to the song in a few minutes but, first, let me explain how I set the activity up and present it ~ in as magical a way as possible...

Before the storytime starts, I place the rainbow pieces inside the "pot".

I start the activity by asking the children to help me name the different fruits
as I add them to the board. 

We then practice our color signs for each fruit.

The children should see only an "empty pot" with a stirring spoon throughout the song.

Now we are ready for the song. Please click on the song title for a copy of the words without the pictures.

 Rainbow Stew

(Sung to: "Jimmy Crack Corn")

"Take an apple"

"Put it in the pot."

"Stir it, stir it, stir it a lot."

"Take it out now. What will it be? The prettiest red you ever did see!"
(Place red rainbow piece on the board with dramatic flair.)

Continue the song ~ taking one fruit at a time off the board, placing it in the pot, stirring with the spoon, and then placing the appropriate rainbow piece on the board. 

"Take the grapes and put them in the pot. Stir it, stir it, stir it a lot."



"Take it out now. What will it be? The prettiest purple you ever did see!"


By this time, the children are wide-eyed and usually yelling, "It's a rainbow!" So I congratulate them on helping to magically make a beautiful rainbow from our Rainbow Stew recipe. Then we finish up with this rhyme:

Rainbow Colors

Rainbow purple,

Rainbow blue,

Rainbow green,

And yellow, too. 

Rainbow orange,

Rainbow red,

Rainbow smiling overhead.

Come and count the colors with me.

How many colors do you see?

1-2-3

Up to green

4-5-6

Colors are seen.

I also have a magnetic board version of this song. The rainbow pieces are made from Fun Foam.

The foam pieces have several magnets on the back to make it easier to place them together as a rainbow.

The fruit pieces that I use are artificial fruits that can be found at Michael's or Wal-Mart. I prefer to buy them at Michael's with a 40% off coupon. *Wink*

I have yet to find a blueberry so I made my own by painting a small wooden ball. It has worked just fine. (If you look closely, you can see it by the pear and grapes in the picture above.)

As you may have noticed in the picture, I use this activity with the book, Lunch, written by Denise Fleming. I have several learning activities for this book that I will be sharing in the near future. One is a cute mouse puppet or hat ~ depending on how you want to use it. 

I have also used this activity for a storytime on Spring, Weather, Colors, Fruits and Vegetables, or even Leprechauns and St Patrick's Day. Each time I use it, the children have a BLAST!

I also like to change up how we stir so that I can include sizes and following directions as part of my storytime learning. For example, when it is time for the blueberry, I talk about how small it is. I ask, " Do you think we can get any color from something so small?" We try and it doesn't work. Instead of the blue rainbow piece coming out of the pot after stirring, I just take the blueberry out and act sad and curious. "No blue! It's just the berry. How can we get the blue out? Maybe if we stir really fast? Are you ready? Can you stir fast, fast, fast?" I re-sing that verse and stir fast. Then when the blue rainbow piece appears, we all clap! So much fun!

No matter how many times a child has seen this activity, s/he still participates and has fun.

Thank you for stopping by my blog for another Flannel Friday post. I hope you find many opportunities to share a little Rainbow MAGIC with a child in your life!

HAPPY READING TOGETHER!

By the way, here’s Flannel Friday information for this week:

Andrea has the round up at Roving Fiddlehead Kidlit.

Round up archives and host schedule is at So Tomorrow.

Visually scan all the Flannel Friday posts at Pinterest.

Talk about storytime and flannelboards at the Flannel Friday Facebook Page. Be sure to checkout my Flannel Friday Comment Challenge on the facebook page. This is the second week and I am offering an incentitive!

Follow Flannel Friday on Twitter with the #flannelfriday hashtag. (You don’t have to be on Twitter to check this out.)

And, last but not least, if you’re a contributor, there is an awesome blog button from Melissa and you can grab it from the right hand menu at Mel’s Desk!