While children were gathered for a story on the carpet two boys made an interesting discovery. The two boys attention is drawn from the story to the carpet and their shoes. They began pointing, shifting and quietly saying “look!” and “watch this”. The boys noticed a rainbow of colors had appeared flickering and moving from their shoes to the carpet with just simple movements of their bodies. The educator decides to take this opportunity to investigate their inquiry and find out the children’s thoughts. The first group conversation began like this;
Educator: “Wow! look at what C and J have found! Boys, why don’t you show your friends what you have discovered”
Little Mr. C: “Well…ummmm it’s a light on my shoe, look…see!”
Little Mr. J: “Ya…it’s colors and it goes on the carpet too”
Educator: “What do you think it might be?”
Little Mr. C: “It’s a rainbow!!”
Educator: “How do you know?”
Little Mr. M: “It’s a rainbow because it has red, orange, green yellow and indigo”
Educator: “Where do you think the rainbow is coming from?”
Little Mr. B: “Its coming from the frogs water see (child points our frog tank), the water is making the rainbow from outside”
Educator: “Those are some interesting thoughts and ideas, why don’t we find out!”
During the next few days small groups of interested children decide how they would like to research and find out more about rainbows. Some children choose to go to the library, while others decide to look on the internet. As more children begin to show an interested in rainbows, we decided to use this new inquiry/interest to plan and provide other learning experiences in the classroom over the next few weeks (careful not to mislead, this did not become a “theme” the classroom did at all times reflect other learning and play as well).
In our “Art Studio” opportunities to explore all painting tools and colors, crayons, and pastels are available for exploration. Sharing times are focused on various representations of rainbows created, as well as other learning. Children are encouraged to label colors, and print their name on their art work- based on their individual literacy skills to represent their learning.
The Light table becomes a place to build, create and pattern using different colored transparent blocks and color filter paddles. Crayons, paper and pencils are provided and children are encouraged to “make a plan” for their creations or record their patterns for sharing.
As the children continue gather their research into their inquiry, we were hoping the weather would co- operate and share a little sunlight that would allow for the children to play and experiment further, but no luck! The weather over the next few days was very cloudy, so we decided to use a science experiment found here- http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Rainbow (method 4- flashlight method) to help the children create their own rainbow!
The children loved the idea of making their own rainbow!! Each child participated and took their turn using the flashlight to shine light into the water and create their own rainbow on the ground! Some children ran into the light to see how that would affect the experiment, other children gently tried to catch the light in their hands sharing smiles as the light of colours landed on in their palm.
As we gathered at the end of the week we asked the children to share their learning and research as a group. Little Mr. C shared with his friends “the sun makes the rainbow”, little Mr. B adds “it’s only when it has been raining, cause the sunlight reflects off the drops of rain and makes the colours”.
To extend this learning even further, during “Spirit Week” at our school each individual class was asked to choose a colour to wear that would represent their class on December 17th. Participants from Kindergarten to Grade 8 were asked to came together in our front foyer to reflect, and offer Prayers to those who might be struggling over the Christmas holidays. To honour our virtue of hope and our inquiry into Rainbows our school created a formation using the children and their class color to create our very own “Rainbow of Hope”.
As the Christmas holiday are upon us we will be curious to see when we return if the children continue their interest into rainbows, what their new questions and wonderings might be and where the learning and play will take us next!
Stay tuned to see how we used this inquiry to promote learning into math and data management….
Journey Together FDK 
Reblogged this on constructivistthinking and commented:
An example of how investigating Rainbows turned into a unit about lights and reflections.