Teach Your Toddler the Colors of the Rainbow with a Tasty Treat

Rainbows can be magical for children and adults and they are also a great opportunity to teach your child his colors! Our fruit-filled fun Friday activity will bring rainbows right to your kitchen! (This activity received 5 stars from Kolcraft. Our office loves it when we try out our recipes on them! )

What you will need:

• Fruit representing each color
• Sponge Cake (bundt shape)
• Cool Whip (or make your own whip cream!)
• Spatula to spread Cool Whip
• Knife to cut fruit (to be used by adult only)
• Optional – crayons or markers and blank piece of paper

Some fruit suggestions:

RED: Red raspberries, cherries, strawberries, red apples slices

ORANGE: Mandarin orange slices, cantalope, peach slices

YELLOW: Bananas, pineapple

GREEN: Kiwi, Green Grapes, Green apples, Honeydew Melon

BLUE: Blueberries

VIOLET: Purple Grapes, plums

We didn’t use indigo because the color is so close to purple, it is hard for a toddler to distinguish

Directions:

Talk to your toddler about rainbows. Tell her about the different rainbow legends such as the  leprechauns and a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Have your child draw a rainbow. Explain the different colors of the rainbow and ask your toddler if they know any fruit that is that color. You can have the fruit out in case they need a little visual reminder.

Very simply explain the color order of the rainbow. Have your child hand you the fruit that matches that color. Cut up the bigger fruit into small slices and have your toddler help you “frost” the cake with Cool Whip. Arrange the fruit on cake in rows or columns.

Tips

Start with the inner or outer ring or place one of each fruit at one end of the cake. This will help you plan if you need to adjust size of fruit. It will also serve as a guide for   your child for what color fruit to place where.

You will have to stand a few of the fruit up to fit all the colors. We found this was easiest to do with the slices of fruit like apple or orange slices.

What ways have you taught your toddler his colors?