Rainbow Geometry Painting

Somewhere over the rainbow lies a fun way to learn geometry.  I promise.  Because there aren’t many better ways to learn math than by combining it with bright colors and messy paint.  Well, maybe candy, but this comes in close second :)  Rainbow Geometry Painting is as easy as laying out the supplies and letting the rainbow creativity happen.  This post contains affiliate links.

Rainbow geometry painting is a colorful way to learn about shapes and color mixing.  STEM meets Art = STEAM.

Rainbow Geometry Painting Supplies Needed

Rainbow Paint Left Brain Craft BrainFirst lay out your paint (or have your kiddo do it) in rainbow order.  It’s a great time to teach ROYGBIV.  Somehow, it took me until I was about 20 to learn the acronym for Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet.   Call it a gap. Good thing there’s a video that capture’s Pixar’s use of ROYGBIV in their movies to help us learn it :)

This project was also inspired by some 3D geometric solid shapes that we have.  I’m in love with these 3D shapes from Learning Resources. They are so bright and colorful and you can use them for so many activities.  We used them for Kinetic Sand Math and have a few slimy plans for them ahead, too.  I’ve always been a sucker for plexi-glass…  Something about the transparency makes them intriguing.  And not just for me.  The Babe loves playing with them.  And it looks like painting with them too.

Rainbow Geometry Painting Closeup

Although the beginning pics started out with distinct shapes, this project quickly became the see how messy you can get finger painting project.  And shape rolling project.  I kept hearing her talk to herself saying things like “Red & green make brown when I roll the cylinder through them.  What about blue & orange?”

Rainbow Shapes Left Brain Craft Brain

Some Questions to Ask

I definitely love it when my girl’s brain wheels are turning during activities.  But free flowing thinking doesn’t happen every day (she is 4 after all…), so I try to be ready with a few open ended questions to get her started.  This day we chatted a bit about geometry, color mixing and rainbows to help reinforce the learning.  Some good questions to ask are:

  • Which shapes do you think will roll the easiest through the paint?  Why?
  • How many sides does shape A have?  What is it called?
  • What happens when you mix color A & B?
  • What makes a rainbow in the sky?  Where were we the last time we saw a rainbow?

Color Creativity

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Rainbow Geometry Painting Left Brain Craft Brain FB

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