Rainbow River Lesson Plan

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Academic Standards

 

Reading Objective:

Children will learn that plants need the correct amount of water and sunlight to thrive.

 

Reading Level:

Lexile: 510L GRL: L

 

Next Generation Science Standards:

2-ESS2 Water on Earth can be found in rivers

2-LS2-1 Plants need sunlight and water to grow

 

Vocabulary:

liquid, bloom, shrivels

Use these questions to check students’ understanding and stimulate discussion:

 

1. Why do people call this river a liquid rainbow? (For a few months a year, it is full of colors.)

2. What makes the river look so colorful? (A picky little plant. It can burst into colorful flowers.)

3. What does the plant need to bloom? (just the right amount of water and sunlight)

4. Some worry that having a lot of visitors hurts the plant and the river. Would you stop the visitors? (Answers will vary.)

Go online to print or project the Reading Checkpoint.

 

  • To get to the river, you have to take a plane, take a boat, and then do a long hike!
  • Cougars, anteaters, monkeys, and more than 400 kinds of birds live by the river.
  • The picky plant’s name is Macarenia clavigera.

Materials: 7 clear cups or glasses; water; scissors; red, yellow, and blue food coloring;
paper towels; crayons; copies of the skill sheet

Overview: Demonstrate how colored water “walks” along a paper towel strip to the next cup. Kids will observe the capillary action property of water and see primary colors mix.

Directions:

  1. Before the lesson, take 6 half-sheets of paper towel. Fold them in half lengthwise and then in half again, to form thin strips.
  2. Place 7 cups in a row. Fill the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th cups with water.
  3. Add 5 drops of red food coloring to the 1st and 7th cups; 5 drops of yellow to the 3rd cup; and 5 drops of blue to the 5th cup.
  4. Place one end of a paper strip in the 1st cup and the other end in the 2nd cup. Repeat with other strips as in the photo below. (Trim the strips if they stick up too much.) Students predict: What will happen to the water? Pass out skill sheets to record.
  5. Let kids watch the water climb the paper strips. This is called capillary action: Drops of water cling to the paper more than to each other. The same thing happens with plant stems, which pull water up a plant.