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Light and Rainbows Investigation for Early Elementary

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Do you find yourself avoiding science investigations due to the amount of prep and planning? The clean up can be just as exhausting. It’s so easy to throw a video on or put a worksheet on their desk and read from the textbook. But, did you know that experiments and investigations don’t have to be a lot of work? Don’t put a ton of pressure on yourself to have an extravagant activity planned. A simple activity can be just as effective! These light and rainbows activities are the perfect example!

Tie in Literacy with Science

This literacy teacher LOVES reading nonfiction books during my science block. It’s a great way to show my learners that reading is everywhere! Before I start our investigations, I read some of these books to discuss prior knowledge and get everyone excited.

Light and Rainbows Investigations

Understanding light is not something that can be taught strictly from a book. Students understand these difficult concepts through hands on interactions. And these activities are LOW PREP! Yay!

Most of these supplies you already have in your classroom or home:

  • Mirror
  • flashlight
  • clear drinking glass
  • straw
  • paper

That’s it! These simple supplies will bring a ton of learning to these light and rainbows activities.

Straight Light

A fun experiment to show how light travels! Create a tube out of paper and shine light through it. What happens?

Next, bend the tunnel. What happens now?

Bending Light

This one is my favorite! The ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhhs’ from this experiment is an great indicator of the fun they have. This activity shows our littles ones that light bends using water!

Have your learners play around with different positions of the straw and write down observations on the activity sheet.

A Freebie to Get You Started!

These are just of the few activities that are in my St. Patrick’s thematic unit. It’s a unit centered around light and rainbows, and includes math and literacy centers!

Create your own rainbow with simple supplies you already have on hand! With this free resource, you get an investigation activity sheet with steps on how to create a rainbow.

You also get steps to create an anchor chart to put in your room!

You can click the download button below to grab this free resource!

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progress monitoring in the early elementary classroom for math, literacy and reading
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