Rainbows

This week we followed the lead of the main character in the book we read, Ada Twist, Scientist, and experimented!  We made our own rainbows by coloring the bottoms of paper towels with washable markers and putting each end into cups of water.  We watched capillary action carry the colors up the paper towel to connect in the middle, forming a rainbow.  The kids really loved this, and some of them kept making rainbows and doing other experiments with the same materials the whole time!  Eventually almost everyone moved on to the next project -- raised salt painting, using glue, salt, and watercolor paints.  We mixed colors and experimented with how the paper, glue, and salt absorbed the watercolors differently.  Between activities, the kids sketched in homemade notebooks to record their lab notes, which, fascinatingly, included many drawings of dinosaurs!