Rainy Day Activities | Rainbow Foam Fun

Is today feeling like a rainy day? Let’s be honest, any day can feel like a rainy day, whatever the weather. Rainy days include times of need or trouble. And days like these call for rainy day activities.

Rainbow foam is easy, quick and fun. To be honest there’s no real purpose to it. But it’s an all-time winner for rainy days.

It’s important to be mindful of how much liquid soap you use for fun. So please limit the number of times that you enjoy this activity.

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How to Make Rainbow Foam

Making Rainbow foam is not rocket science and there’s probably more than one way to make it. But, the easiest option is water, liquid soap and food colouring.

How to Make Rainbow Foam

Into a blender or smoothie maker add:

• 1 cup of water
• 3 tablespoons of liquid soap
• 1+ teaspoon of food colouring

Just put everything into a blender and whizz on a low/medium speed. Oh and remember to put the blender lid on (yes, this oversight did occur, LOL).

If you want to make your foam extra fluffy add 1/2 cup flour and whisk it with a hand whisk.

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Sensory Play

There are loads of cool things that you can do with rainbow foam. And sensory play comes in at number one.

Sensory play provides kids with the opportunity to explore scientific processes all while they play, create, explore and investigate. So why not encourage little learners to:

• pour the foam into a tray and create layers of colour
• look closely at the foam with a magnifying glass
• make patterns in the foam with a stick
• place toy cars, dolls or animal figures in the foam
• describe how the foam feels
• explore whether leaves and pebbles float or sink.

If your little learner loves sensory play, read Holly’s blog How to Make a Space-themed Invitation to Play (Sensory Play).

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Bubbles

A foam is a substance formed by trapping pockets of gas (bubbles) in a liquid or solid. And there’s some pretty cool science behind bubbles.

So in this case, a bubble is air wrapped in soap film. And the soap film is made from soap and water. There’s even a thin layer of water between the two layers of soap molecules!

So, encourage your little learners to look closely at the bubbles in the foam and to draw their observations. Here are a few more bubble ideas…

1. Shine a torch on the bubbles and explore what happens and why.
2. Compare the size of bubbles.
3. Try to blow more air into a large bubble.
4. Pop the bubbles (just for fun).

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Rainbow Abstract Art

Why not create a piece of abstract art? Simply create abstract shapes by pouring the rainbow foam in various shapes and swirls. Next, explore how colours mix and change.

If you find your inner artist and feel like exploring colour a little more, check out our Art Elements Poster Pack.

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Explore the Science of Rainbows

For a science fix to brighten your day, why not explore refraction and reflection? It’s easy to make rainbows whatever the weather. All you need is a glass of water, a light source such as a torch or lamp and a sheet of white paper!

How to Make a Rainbow

1. Place the sheet of white paper on a flat surface. If using sunlight as the light source, place the paper in a position where the sun will shine on it.
2. Put the glass of water on the sheet of paper so that the light source shines through the water and onto the paper.
3. If a rainbow doesn’t appear, move the light source around or slowly raise and lower the glass of water until a rainbow appears on the paper.
4. Draw a picture or take a photo to record your results.

The sun makes rainbows when white sunlight passes through raindrops. The raindrops act like tiny prisms. These little prisms bend the different colours in white light, spreading it out and creating bands of colour. Finally, these colours are reflected back to us as a rainbow.

For a lesson plan on the refraction of light, head to Lesson 6: Refracting Light. For more useful teaching resources head to our collection of Physical Sciences Teaching Resources.

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Whether you want to make rainbow foam to explore art, science, sensory play or just for no reason at all, it’s time… give this rainy day activity a go.

So, dust off your blender, put down your frozen bananas and pick up your food colouring!

If rainbow foam makes you feel happy, consider slime as your next move. Read Holly’s blog, How to Make Slime for Kids (Easiest Recipe Ever!).

Share your rainbow foam photos on Instagram #teachstarter.