Need a break from winter weather? How about a game that is fun, easy to play, and teaches your kids the order of colors in a rainbow? My kids have both known their colors since they were young toddlers but knowing the order they appear in the rainbow is tricky. Do you still say ROY-G-BIV to yourself in your head? I do. I don’t expect my kids to know the order offhand after a few rounds, but they did leave with a clear understanding that the order is not dynamic and that the order is a pattern of primary and secondary colors.
If you don’t have Duplo on hand, you can use pipe cleaners, pompoms, or paper and crayons and have your child draw the arcs. As you will see, this simple rainbow activity for kids is a cinch and my kids were totally into it!
Gather your materials. You will need some Duplo (or alternatives already mentioned), a die, construction paper in the rainbow colors and tape. 
The die only had 6 sides and we included indigo to make a proper rainbow. I had my kids start with red as the first color and left it off the die. I cut all the paper into squares and taped them on the die.
Time to play. Make a pool of colors and let the youngest roll first. We tried “rock, paper, scissors” to see who goes first but my daughter always chooses rock, so my son wins.
Roll the die and pick up the color you roll. If you roll a color you already have you do nothing. The first person to have all the colors of the rainbow wins.
My daughter was off to a great start.
It had her big brother very very worried. 
Then they tied it up
and I had them both review the colors in order. I love this picture and the two of them speaking at the same time captures what it’s like at my house 75% of the time. 
They both needed indigo – nice place to be stuck because it was the color they were the least familiar with. We talked about where it went at length. Finally, someone (can you guess who?) rolled it… and won. 
We played until my daughter also got indigo and they could both proudly display their rainbows made during this rainbow activity for kids. 
Want more great ideas for preschool activities? Check out our Build Preschool Thematic Curriculum Units!
deanne says
Hi. Love this idea! I am curious where you found the leggos. I cannot find this size anywhere!!!! I continue to find the mini ones that cone in sets to build or the mega blocks. Thanks for your ideas and your help.
Allison McDonald says
You can find them on Amazon – ( this is an affiliate link ) LEGO Duplo Building Set-71 pieces (5506)
Georgina @ Craftulate says
I love their expressions on that final roll!! This is a lovely idea!
Alicia says
I love to find activities that use supplies we already have at home. This is awesome!
Allison McDonald says
Yay!!
andie jaye says
this is beyond brilliant! what a great way to teach the spectrum to little learners. great shots too! pinning and sharing!
Joyce @Childhood Beckons says
This is such a fun way to teach the order! Great idea. I laughed out loud when I got to the picture of your son winning. Priceless!
Kai says
This looks great fun! And an easy game to set up at short notice, too. I’m thinking that we could play a second or third time and instead of making the lego tower rainbow we could stick the arches together to make some kind of rainbow for display at home. Or with play-dough, etc…
I wanted to ask you about scissor-paper-stone. Isn’t the idea that each one always beats one other one, so there’s never one that is always defeated??? So paper smothers stone, stone blunts scissors, scissors cut paper! That way, if your daughter always chooses rock, she wins if her brother chooses scissors, but loses if he chooses paper. Hope that helps!
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