Color Science: 5 Rainbow Science Experiments for Your Homeschool

Spring time is the perfect time to plan some rainbow science experiments! Take advantage of the rainy weather and spring sunshine to be on the lookout for the resulting rainbow. If there are no rainbows to be seen outdoors, take the fun inside and create your own! You likely have all the supplies you’ll need for these five rainbow science experiments in your home already.

This walking rainbow yields impressive results with only a few ingredients and a little patience. Explore the concepts of capillary action and color theory with this simple experiment.

You can play with the concepts of density and color theory with this beautiful rainbow jar. This is a fun experiment to do with children of all ages, but be aware that a few of the steps do require a bit of hand-eye coordination, so younger children will need an older helper for these actions.

If the weather isn’t conducive to searching out some natural rainbows, you can create your own with a few items from your kitchen. This rainbow experiment is an excellent way to demonstrate reflection and refraction, and to illustrate the way rainbows are formed by sunlight and water in the atmosphere.

This “Catch the Rainbow” experiment looks like magic to the unscientific eye! See if your little scientists can figure out the explanation for the colors’ movement in a bowl of milk as you demonstrate density, color theory, and the molecular interaction between the fats in the milk and oils in the soap.

Translation:
¡Este experimento de “Atrapa el arco iris” parece mágico para el ojo no científico! Vea si sus pequeños científicos pueden descubrir la explicación del movimiento de los colores en un tazón de leche mientras demuestra densidad, teoría del color y la interacción molecular entre las grasas en la leche y los aceites en el jabón.

This fun preschool rainbow activity will require a little bit of secret preparation on your part, but your kids will love practicing motor skills using a dropper to move water and learning to associate the written name of each color with the color itself.