baking rainbow {cup}cakes with kids

One of our favorite activities from rainbow week was baking rainbow cakes! The children love cooking and/or preparing food in our classroom so I try to arrange something a couple times a month. Baking rainbow cakes came about after a lively reading of Bunny Cakes. The children decided we should bake a cake, knowing the following week would be our rainbow week, I asked if they would like to bake rainbow cakes. The cheer was affirmative and so I planned.

For this activity we used a box mix. The children all sat together at our main activity table while we discussed the ingredients used in cake-making. Some of the children remembered that Ruby used milk and eggs to bake Grandma's cake and so I showed them the eggs I had brought and talked about the niftiness that is a cake mix. We sat at our tables and reviewed ingredients before I began mixing. The children took turns passing the bowl of dry cake mix around for a whiff. They were quite excited.

After I had mixed the batter up, we portioned out the batter into some white classroom bowls purchased from the discount store. I prefer to use real dishes as opposed to disposable when we can. The children took turns picking out one of the colors from the rainbow, with the last two colors being happily claimed by the last two children (we had six that day so it worked out perfectly!) They quickly got to mixing. I forgot our wooden spoons so plastic it was, drats!

When we bake in our classroom we use our Baby Cakes cupcake maker. I found it at Bed, Bath, and Beyond for $5 after a big sale and some coupon magic! The maker does not heat up until you plug it in and there are eight mini cupcake wells inside. We have used it for cupcakes, muffins, and pie. I love it! The children waited patiently for their turn to drip, drip, drip a rainbow of batter into their cup. I made a quick diagram of whose cupcake was whose on a piece of scratch paper.

After 10 minutes the cupcakes were done! The cupcake maker does get hot so make sure there is an adult near it at all times or that it is tucked away from anxious little hands. The first batch of cupakes were gently scooped out with a silicone spatula and placed on a place in the order they baked and set aside to cool. The remaining batter (there was a lot of batter, I wonder if I could hack the recipe on the box with one scoop of cake mix) was scooped in by the teachers and enjoyed after class.

 
The children were presented with their very own mini cupcake on a plate with a dollop of whipped cream and a smattering of sprinkles. Had we had more time, we would have made the whipped cream in class but we were pushing it.

The verdict? Delicious!

rainbow discovery bottles

I've been busy with a couple of summer teaching projects so here is a mini post to share! For our week of A Rainbow of My Own, I whipped up a batch of RAINBOW DISCOVERY BOTTLES for the kiddos to enjoy. Each one was made with warm water and clear glue with extra bits of color added for well...discovery.

 

The red bottle had glitter, orange had buttons, yellow...a chunky gold glitter, green...marbles, blue more glitter, and purple...beads. The children loved these. LOVED these! They practiced arranging them in rainbow order, naming the colors, and counting the bottles. They also carried them around the room, played with them all day long, and asked me all sorts of questions about what was inside each bottle, often bringing a bottle to me randomly throughout the day to proclaim that "Blue has glitter, Purple has beads." It was super fun!  They are now in our BIG window and make the room just a little more happy.

diy dyed pasta

There are oodles of diys for coloring rice and pasta put there (hello, Pinterest). I suppose mine is no more different than anyone other but I'm going to share it with you anyway. I use this method for dying rice, beans, pasta of all shapes and size, and even wood pieces such as wee blocks and/or clothes pins. It's really easy!

This is a small batch of dyed pasta as I only had one box. I wanted to use this pasta so the kiddos could string the pieces onto pipe cleaners during our week of rainbow. I think I did all the colors in the rainbow but I can't remember. I also have to tell ya that dying pasta purple is really difficult and you will most likely get something more akin to bergundy. So here is what I did. I scooped a cup of noodles into each bowl. Just a cup. A little goes a long way. Just one cup for each color if you are using a single pckage. Oh and this pasta is called ditalini and if you buy it in a box with that label you will be sorely over paying. It can also be found in a box labeled macaroni salad pasta and this my friends will be 2-3 dollars less. But that just may be my market...

Place your one cup of dry pasta into a resealable bag or container. Add a squirt or two of liquid watercolor or food color (you can even use watered down acrylic paint), seal the bag and shake it up. Use your fingers to smoosh the paint around from the outside of the bag. For color stay noodles, you can add a tablespoon of vinegar or rubbing alcohol. The rubbing alcohol will help the noodles dry more quickly. You do not need to add either this is optional. If I remember I do, if I don't, I do not worry about it.

Spill the damp and now colorful noodles onto a cookie sheet that has been lined with wax or parchment paper until dry. It takes about 15 minutes to dry. Repeat for each color you wish.

Ah, yes. I did do each color of the rainbow and I think I did use watered down acrylic for the purple. It looks pretty vibrant there. I popped all the happy colorful noodles into a small shallow container along with a couple of wooden spoons. Next to the container I set out our happy rainbow bowls (best $3 thrift find!) and a white acrylic tray and waited for the fun to begin.

There was maybe a moment or two of color sorting going on but the bigger pleasure for the children was running their hands through the hole happy mess along with scooping, pouring, and dumping. Success!

diy paper rainbow clouds

Back during the spring, we had a week of rainbow fun. One of our projects was these paper rainbow clouds.  We used white paper and crepe paper streamers. The children really had a blast!

Materials:
*sturdy white paper
*crepe paper streamers in rainbow colors
*pens
*scissors
*glue sticks

Step 1: Hand out white paper to your kiddos and have them draw a cloud on it. I used 11" X 17" paper cut in half. Each child got a half sheet to draw their cloud on. I encouraged them to draw the cloud as big as they could. Each child had a different approach to cloud drawing as mentioned in this post.

Step 2: Cut around cloud shape for each kiddo if they are on the younger side. The children in my class are three and not many are confident with their scissors skills. I always ask before cutting. One of the children decided to make a rainbow instead and cut it all out on his own. It was awesome. I wish I caught a picture before he put it in his bag to take home. You can see him beginning to draw it in the third picture from the top there.

Step 3: Set out crepe paper, scissors, and glue sticks and have your kiddos add their streamers. The children used scissors to cut their streamers and glue sticks to adhere them to the paper. We had them glue their streamers to the side that had their cloud drawing on it though not everyone did that. It was all good. We talked a lot about rainbow order but it wasn't necessary for the project.

Step 4: Next, add a second sheet of white paper to the back of each rainbowed cloud. Before using your glue stick to adhere the back on, glue a loop of yarn to the top for easier hanging.Carefully trim with scissors taking care to not cut the streamers off (I speak from experience...d' oh!).

freight train sorting

Really, this is vehicle sorting on a Freight Train inspired felt train but it was set up to go along with our week of Freight Train by Donald Crews. I use the rainbow in class a lot. I think it is a really great tool for color recognition, sequencing, math, color theory and so much more. We used these vehicle counters and the children spent a lot of time at our sorting center. The felt pieces also made an appearance at our felt board. Train pieces were drawn by the mister and cut out by me. They match the colors and cars in Freight Train.

Other Train books we read:

Locomotive by Brian Floca
The Little Red Caboose by Marian Potter
Trains by Gail Gibbons
Chugga Chugga Choo Choo by Kevin Lewis
I Love Trains by Philemon Sturgess

make a rainbow pillow

 Howdy folks! Going back to this post, I'm going to show some pics from how I made the rainbow pillow. I need to let you know that I am an awful crafter in the sense that I cut corners and don't measure. I am very imprecise. I just kinda do, so please forgive my lack of specifics and I hope you manage to whip up a happy rainbow yourself.

Materials

*large sheet of paper or newspaper

*pen or pencil

*scissors

*pins

*fabric scraps

*sewing machine

*fiber fill of choice

First, draw out a blunt rainbow shape on a large sheet of white paper (I taped two smaller sheets together to create a larger size). Cut it out.

 Find a red swatch of fabric a little larger than your template. Collect the next five colors in the rainbow making each swatch smaller than the one before it.

I pinned the red fabric to the pattern and cut it out. Eyeball your next color (orange) and cut out a similar shape only smaller than the red, continue until you have cut out remaining five colors. Stack them atop each other to see how your rainbow will look. Use scissors to trim and make any adjustments.

 Pin the orange fabric to the red and machine stitch using both a running stitch and a zig-zag. Repeat until all your fabric pieces are stitched together, making a happy rainbow.

Flip the whole shebang over and pin it to the backing fabric (mine was cut into a large rectangle). Take over to the machine and stitch the two pieces together leaving a channel open for turning right-side out and stuffing.

Trim fabric and turn right side out. Settle into a comfy space with a bag of fiber-fill and get to stuffing. Handstitch the opening closed and now your pillow is ready to go!

If you need any help, feel free to ask me anything, I'm here for ya!

**Oh my, I must have been super tired when I wrote out this post. I just remembered that I actually did NOT simply eyeball the pieces as I cut them, rather I CUT the actual PATTERN with each subsequent color.  It's even easier than eyeballing. Seriously easy. I can't believe I completely blanked. Zoinks!

pot o' gold cookies

Complete with rainbow coating! Well...sort of. This kooky cookie is super easy to make and packs a punch. One cookie is super-sized so don't worry about making a huge batch. One for each kiddo should suffice especially if they each paint their own.

Ingredients

*shortbread cookie dough

*caramel filled candies such as rollos or kisses

*liquid food color

*clean paintbrushes

*parchment paper

*cookie sheet

Start with a batch of shortbread dough and a small bowl of unwrapped caramel filled candies. Shortbread dough has the texture of a play dough so it makes for easier handling. There are no eggs in the dough so it allows for the occasional nibble without worry of salmonella. It's a win-win kind of dough!

 

 

 

Have your kiddo flatten out a golf ball sized bit of dough with the palm of their hand. Add a candy to the center and gently wrap dough around the candy creating a kiss-shaped cookie. Set onto a parchment lined cookie sheet and continue until you have 8-10 cookies at the ready.

 

Fill a small paint palette with watered down liquid food color. Have your kiddos paint up their cookies with all the rainbow colors. 

Return them back to the cookie sheet. Lining your cookie sheet with parchment will keep your sheet sticky-free as the caramel candies have the tendency to ooze out of the dough. Pop the sheet into a preheated oven (375 f) and bake for 10-12 minutes. A little less if you want a less crumble cookie but not too much more otherwise the cookie tops will burn.

 

Allow to cool and enjoy with a cold cup of your favorite milk beverage. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

make crepe tissue rainbows

 For this project, we're going a little old school by wrapping small squares of tissue around the eraser-end of a pencil. To update it, we're using crepe paper streamers instead, they are much easier to cut into small squares. So easy, your kiddos can even do it!

Materials

*crepe paper streamers in rainbow colors

*large yogurt lids or other round bases

*white glue

*pencil with eraser-end

*hole punch

*cotton balls

*yarn or string

Gather up your supplies and have your kiddos cut long strips of streamer into smallish squares.

 Use a hole punch to punch a hole out of your yogurt lid. I like using yogurt container lids as they are a smidge larger than small but not so large, children lose interest in filling them. You can also use cardboard or sturdy paper cut into circles but the lip on the lids will corral all that sticky glue.

 

Squirt a happy amount of glue inside the lid and have your kiddos use their fingers to spread it around. Some lids may resist the glue, you can sand down the surface with a bit of sand paper if you like. This will help the whole thing stick better and last longer.

 

To create a rainbow, have your kiddos wrap a red square of tissue around the eraser of the pencil. Next, while the tissue is still wrapped, flip pencil over and push it against the glue filled lid. Slowly pull the pencil away from the tissue and you will leave behind a happy tissue flair. Repeat with the red and arc across the top part of the lid creating a rainbow shape.

Continue with each color in rainbow order (or not). Notice how each arc grows smaller and smaller? Dialogue with your kiddos and see what observations they make.

 

After the last arc is in place. Give your kiddo a cotton ball to tear into smaller pieces. Place the cotton "cloud" at the bottom of the rainbow and set side to dry.

Once dry, loop a length of ribbon, yarn or string, through the hole-punched hole and hang in a happy place!You can also let your kiddo glue their rainnbow squares however they like to create a happy party of color!