We began the unit by reading The Hidden Rainbow by Christie Matheson. For this book, we focused on number and color vocabulary. The book takes the reader through the rainbow. The students focused on the color word; coloring what was written on each page.

Next, we read Rainbow by Marion Dane Bauer, and my kids answered the question “What did you learn about rainbows?” This book is full of great facts about weather and rainbows! They illustrated a picture about something they learned about rainbows from the story.

Next, we read Ruby’s Rainbow. We discussed the problem and solution in the story. Once the kids understood the problem and solution they illustrated both.

Our next reading skill was making predictions. To do that, I held up the book Rainbow Stew by Cathryn Falwell and asked students to make predictions based on the cover alone. After reading the story we discussed whether their predictions were correct or not.

We finished our reading off with “R” emergent readers. We focused on tracking the print. Two versions of my Rainbow Preschool Unit are available on Teachers Pay Teachers. One version has the word and a picture clue. The second version has a simple sentence with the same picture clue. I used the word-only version with my 4-year-old.

Our first literacy activity in our preschool rainbow unit was ending sound puzzles. We did “ay,” “and,” “ell,” “ee,” “all,” and “ing” word endings. My kids matched the word ending with the image and the word beginning to form the completed word.

The next skill we worked on was rhyming words. The kids used links to match the rhyming words together. I used these links from Learning Resources.

The next skill we worked on was writing. There are four journal prompts included in the preschool rainbow activities. They are simple prompts for your students to respond to. They can be done independently or with the help of an adult.

Letter formation and identification was our next skill. To do this we filled a sand tray and printed out letter cards. The kids spent time tracing the letters on the cards into the sand working on proper letter formation while identifying each letter aloud.

I got my sand tray from the Target dollar spot a few years ago but I will link this one from Amazon.

Our final literacy rainbow activity was rainbow letter stamping. This activity comes in a few formats for differentiation. I purchased self-inking stamps from Amazon for this activity. My set is similar to this one although not the exact same set. You could also use stamps with a stamp pad.

We began our math activities with rainbow counting clip cards. These cards reinforce the numbers 0-10. My kids counted the number of shamrocks on each rainbow and clipped the corresponding number with a clothespin.

Next, we moved on to a color-sorting activity. My kids enjoyed this one a lot. They rolled a die, closed their eyes, and picked up the number of pom poms that they rolled. Then they fed those pom poms to the correct color splash. I ordered these pom poms from Amazon for this activity.

The next skill we worked on was measurement. We used these linking cubes to measure the rainbows and recorded our answers on our recording sheet.

Next, we did a color-by-code rainbow activity. The kids used the number code to color the image.

Our final math rainbow activity was a pattern activity. Students cut and pasted the correct images to complete the patterns.

For our rainbow unit sensory bin, I added rainbow-colored pom poms to a shallow container. Then I added an assortment of grabbers like scoops, tweezers, etc. I also created rainbow tubes for students to place the colored pom poms into.

Next, we got scientific and used prisms and light to make rainbows. The kids recorded their observations on their worksheets.

We worked on our fine motor skills with tracing and cutting following the path for our next activity.

We came back to science again and made our own bubble solution. This solution allowed us to make bubbles within bubbles. I pointed out the rainbows on the surface of the bubble.

Our final activity for our preschool rainbow activities was coffee filter rainbows. This was a great art and science activity. The kids saw diffusion in action.