Circle time Rainbow resources

[tankgirl73]

My 4yo DD has really been loving the Waldorf-style circle time we've been doing for the past few months.  I've bought the "Seasons of Joy" guides for Winter and for Spring and have used those as launching points for putting together our circle time.

Basically, we start with lighting a candle (seemed pointless to me but I tried it and she LOVES it), I'll recite a few short poems, we'll do a couple songs and finger plays, maybe a poem which has her getting up and acting it out.  Then we'll do a longer story -- either a folk story or a chapter in a longer book I'm reading to her -- blow out the candle, and go off to do some "school work" for maybe an hour.  After doing circle time she's in the right kind of mood for "doing school", it's quite fascinating really... and after that she's pretty much free-range heh.  I'll use the same set of poems etc for about a week, and by the end she's singing and reciting along.  Each set of poems etc is also worked around a particular theme related to spring.

We've been out of the habit for the last few weeks, since this is my busiest time of year... but things are STARTING to wind down so I'm getting the next circle time plan ready.  I asked her what she'd like to do... continue the same one we had done last (which was about seeds in the ground waking up and growing), or if she'd rather do a new one... there was one we could do about fairies, or another about rain... She says, she wants to do one about rainbows!

Great idea!  Except... I don't have any resources for rainbow stuff and I'm not very creative for coming up with something 100% on my own.  :)  I think it will blend nicely with the Seasons of Joy suggestions for rain... do some poems about the rain, then segue into how that results in rainbows.  But in googling I've only found one rainbow poem that's really appropriate.  As for songs, I've found that "I can sing a rainbow" song but I can't STAND that one heh... 

So, any suggestions for rainbow songs, stories, poems, fingerplays, etc that I could incorporate???

Thanks!!!

[eatyourveggies]

hehe, I found the 'I can sing a rainbow' song too and I did not like it :)

My daughter loves rainbows too, so this post started me thinking.

I found quite a few songs, though I did not like some of them. But here are a few that I think we will try, and maybe you and your little one will like them too!

This one (below) seems like it might work especially well, and a great addition to it would be to incorporate some of the playsilks for the rainbow while singing the song.

Rainbow (contributed by Brynn (Brynn59) at the Child's Play Forum)
   (Tune: Mary Had a Little Lamb) 
Rainbow over the waterfall, waterfall, waterfall, 
Rainbow over the waterfall, Rainbow over the tree. 
Rainbow over the mountain, mountain, mountain,
Rainbow over the mountain, Rainbow over the sea. 
Rainbow over the flowers, flowers, flowers, 
Rainbow over the flowers, rainbow over the bee 
Rainbow over the dancers, dancers, dancers, 
Rainbow over the dancers, Rainbow over me!!

--------------

Rainbow Colors  (contributed by Brynn (Brynn59) at the Child's Play Forum)
   (Tune: Hush, Little Baby) 
Rainbow purple, rainbow blue 
Rainbow green and yellow, too 
Rainbow orange, rainbow red 
Rainbow smiling overhead. 
Come and count the colors with me 
How many colors can you see? 
One, two, three, down to green, 
Four, five, six can be seen 
Rainbow purple, rainbow blue, 
Rainbow green and yellow, too. 
Rainbow orange, rainbow red, 
Rainbow smiling overhead. 

---------

The Rainbow

Words By: Nellie Brennan
Music By: Jessie L. Gaynor
Adapted By: Terry Kluytmans
Copyright © 2002 KIDiddles.com

See all the sunbeams
Shining, oh so bright,
Then come the raindrops,
Sparkling in the light.
And while they play together,
As happy as can be,
Look at the pretty rainbow,
They've made for you and me!

[tankgirl73]

Ooh, thank you so much!  I love the CONCEPT of the first one, but one thing that bugs me (as a professional musician) is when folks rework new lyrics into existing tunes and the RHYTHMS DON'T MATCH.  It's like, come on people, it's not THAT hard to find a different way to phrase things so that it fits the meter.  I've actually done it myself, did some parodies of Christmas songs for a WWII video game community (long story lol), sometimes we had to try several different phrasings but we weren't satisfied until we made it scan properly!

Anyway, the second is beautiful, and the poem is perfect!  Yay!

[Greenmama2]

Um, er, perhaps it's an accent thing (I'm Australian) but the text seems to fit Mary Had a Little Lamb quite well to me, as long as you shorten "over" to "o'er" which is really very common.

[tankgirl73]

heh, yeah it fits okay with "o'er", but it doesn't actually say "o'er", and my 4yo isn't used to saying "o'er" either.  Also, many of the things that the rainbow is o'er, are 2-syllables rather than 3.  Yes, you can hold the first syllable for 2 counts, and yes that's a common thing in many songs to have that syllabic variation in different verses, but in this instance -- to me anyway -- it seems very awkward.

And it's true that this is far from the worse case of poor-scan-itis I've seen.  There are some that are truly head-scratchers where you really can't figure out WHERE the author intended us to put the syllables.  

Perhaps I'm fussier than some in this particular case.  ;)  I find it too awkward, and the other song is fine, so I'll just skip it.  If someone else likes it they're free to use it of course.  :)

[annettemarie]

Here are a couple I've used:
A Color Lesson
A St. Patrick's Day Circle

Hope that helps!

[umsami]

Do you have any play silks? I can't help but thinking there would be fun things to do with a rainbow of playsilks :)

Rainbow shaker http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/RainbowShaker.htm

I’m a Little Rain Cloud

I’m a little rain cloud in the sky.
I pick up moisture as I float on by.
When I get so full I can’t hold no more,
I open up and let it pour.

Here are some rainbow legends

http://www.colours-of-the-rainbow.com/legends.html

[umsami]

Saw this in a blog too.... not for circle time... but still good ideas :)

http://countingcoconuts.blogspot.com/2010/04/rainbow-activities-part-i.html

[annettemarie]

And I just saw this
Making rainbow playsilks

It's a great together project that you could use for circle.