What Makes a Rainbow?

Rosie has a new found love for rainbows.  I think it started with the book What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Schwartz.   If you are unfamiliar with the book, I highly recommend it!  As you turn the pages, you add a new color to the rainbow, and a ribbon appears for each color as you add it.  This book really helped my daughter learn her colors a few months ago. 

Right before lunch yesterday,  Rosie and I sat down and read, What Makes a Rainbow?  Then I created a pasta rainbow for her to enjoy for lunch!

This was really easy to create, and didn't require much more time than simply preparing the pasta.  I used spaghetti noodles, and cooked them as directed on the package.  Once the pasta was done cooking, I drained it and ran it under cold water.  I  tossed it in a little olive oil to prevent sticking.   Then I divided the pasta into six different bowls.  I added a few drops of food coloring to each bowl.  

You only need a couple drops of food coloring to make the pasta beautifully vibrant.  I do recommend using tongs to mix the color into the pasta so that you do not stain your hands.  Once it is all colored, give it a few minutes to dry before handling the noodles.  Then simply lay the noodles on a plate in a rainbow design.

For the pot of gold, I tried two different methods.  For the first,  I used shredded cheese for the gold, and half of a mini pretz-a-bagel to act as the pot.  I then tried carrots for the gold to see how they looked.

I thought both were cute, but liked the cheese more.  However, I gave Rosie the one using carrots since there had been plenty of cheese in our dinner the night before.

Rosie loved it!

Before Rosie started eating, we talked about all the colors in the rainbow.  Then, she gobbled up most of her plate.  To flavor the pasta,  I just used a little bit of butter, salt,  and pepper, which I added after I had created the rainbow on the plate.

For my lunch, I mixed all the noodle colors together. I thought this rainbow pasta also looked really neat!  If you want to create a rainbow lunch for your child, this would be another way to do it.

Rosie really enjoyed this lunch, and it was a great way to extend her interest in the book What Makes a Rainbow as well as rainbows themselves! 

We had a lot of left over rainbow pasta from this lunch, and had a lot of fun playing and exploring with it after.  Check all the ways we played with our rainbow pasta the next day here.

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