We absolutely love the idea of rainbows in windows to spread joy and hope during social distancing. We have a giant one in our window (much to the embarrassment of my teenage boys!). I have seen so many children smile as they notice it and that makes a bit of teenage embarrassment worth it!

Please show us your rainbows on the Fab Science Facebook group, we’d love to see them!

Here are some rainbow experiments for you…

A rainbow in a glass

This uses simple kitchen ingredients and looks fabulous…you could even display it in your window! You can find all the instructions here.

 

Make a rainbow with Skittles

Grab a bag of Skittles (Smarties work too) and make some beautiful patterns. Instructions for this one are here.

 

 

Colourful cabbages

If you cook a red cabbage, keep the cooking water as it is a pH indicator. That means that it changes colour to show us if things are acids or alkalis. Check out how to do this colourful chemistry experiment here.

 

Find out about rainbows

White light is actually made up of all the different colours of the rainbow, we just have to split the light up to see them! If light travels through different things it bends, this is called refraction. If the angles are just right, we get dispersion…this is the splitting up of the colours. You can try this out by shining a torch through a glass of water onto some white paper. Try moving the torch to different anglers and you might see rainbow colours. Raindrops in the air act in a similar way and you can make a real rainbow in your garden by spraying water on a sunny day.

The Met Office has some interesting stuff about unusual rainbows…have you ever seen a double rainbow? Or a fogbow?

Check out more science experiments to try at home on our Home Education page and don’t forget to share your experiments on the Fab Science Facebook group!