Fun with Jane: Rainbow waterfalls

Our fantasy forest would include rainbow waterfalls. Young children benefit greatly from hands-on learning. This outdoors project turned into a water absorption lesson and colour experiment. It was fascinating to watch the colours from the jars spread up the paper towel and see it change colour.

This was an adult-supervised project - my kids love playing with water and the addition of food colouring adds to the excitement. Hence the need for active parental guidance.

What you'll need

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  Three glass jars per colour experiment - we used nine for our three combinations
• 
  Paper towels
• 
  Food colouring
• 
  Water

How to make it

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  Line up your jars in rows of three and roll up two paper towels for each colour project. We had bottles of blue, red and yellow food colouring which made for some great rainbow combinations once they all blended.
• 
  Pour water in the two outside jars and some food colouring in each - red and yellow to make orange, blue and red to make purple and blue and yellow to make green.
• 
  Wait (this was hard for Charlie and Ella) until the coloured water climbs up the paper towel and meets in the middle empty jar which begins to fill with coloured water from each side.Voila ... your rainbow waterfall!

About Jane

For me, nothing beats crafting for an easy, relaxing, calm and sociable means of entertaining my kids.

For more clever ideas, see Jane's website: funwithjane.co.nz.